were just sharing a file with a pal just like making a backup tape. The problem for Napster was that was largely false and you had people "sharing" a file with 10,000 people for example and the idea that was just "pals" was ludicrous on its' face. Napster became Fencester. A place for stolen material to be transferred to others. Those were the wild and completely lawless early days of the internet and things like Fencester had been allowed to go on because politicians, law enforcement and much of society used to shrug off fraud and theft by saying "it's just the internet and if you go there you should expect things like that". Well the "internet" is now integral to virtually every aspect of our daily lives but the charlatans and excuses largely continue.
Any single person can have hundreds of different e-mail addresses and identities based on those addresses and be on the internet with a different site for each one conducting fraudulent business by charging people but never shipping the product. If the heat gets too bad they just shut the site down and go on their merry way while law enforcement still largely says "well that's the internet for you and people should know they are taking a risk." But if you were a door to door salesman going through a neighborhood and giving one house a different identity than another the cops would have you in cuffs and the D.A. would have you up on charges. To them that's "different" because someone is physically present committing the fraud. But that is pure BS on their part because of the huge amount of commerce that is done online today spearheaded by major retailers etc. The fact is that online fraud has been and is still so huge and prevalent that, with the exception of very big cases, the crooks know that law enforcement isn't going to be able to really go after the thousands and thousands of frauds constantly operating on the internet and taking thousands of dollars here and there and then folding and popping up the next day under a new name and e-mail address.
Copyright exists for a reason and some people fail to realize that an artist might spend hundreds of hours and many thousands of dollars on instruments, paying collaborators etc. on just one song. Copyright exists in order for them to be compensated for their work/costs. Fencester and others tried making the claim "well by file-sharing to thousands it will build up their fan base for their live shows." But not all artists tour or are stage performers and the Fencester argument was always one of "we want to do whatever we want and you should all just adapt to it." In the end it simply boils down to people had legal rights for compensation based on laws and licensing and others didn't want to have to pay for a vinyl album, single, CD, DVD, tape etc.
Years back before streaming I used to haul new release DVD's to the distribution warehouses. The theft of those releases and copying and selling the pirated material online had gotten so bad that there were special locks on the semi trailer doors and only certain security personnel could open them and those people were armed and the entire operation was under constant video surveillance. Every forklift that moved was on video. No driver was allowed out of the truck. It was like a Fort Knox operation. All because some crooks had been stealing and making big money online from people willing to engage in receiving stolen property. But of course the ones buying the pirated movie DVD would say "it's just a DVD I paid $10 for. It's not like it's a big deal."
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