When this country was formed, it was formed with a vision of a free independent country with a free culture. In a free culture all ideas circulate freely so everyone can use them. However now we have the idea of Intellectual property, which is defined as “labors of the mind- including books, films, music, software, and architectural or mechanical designs- over which the author may be entitled to certain legal rights” (Cooley 639). In today’s society, everyone copyrights or patents their technology not knowing they are restricting greater improvements or changes to their creation. More and more restrictions are being implemented and Intellectual property is becoming less free in American culture therefore creativity will suffer as a result.…show more content… (an online music sharing service which allowed users to download music for free) was sued by A&M Records on grounds of contributory and vicarious copyright infringement on in December 1999. The company claimed that the free music sharing service was violating their copyrights. Since A&M Records was not receiving any profit from Napster they saw this as unjust. However, the music from artists that were leaked by the service allowed for more publicity and distribution of the music. People did not want to pay for music and this service allowed for people to discover and listen to music without the fees. Artist’s concert sales went up and so did their publicity. Napster ended up losing the case and resulted in being shut down. Large music companies saw this service as an outright violation to their copyrights, but did not see how it helped improve other aspects of their artists. The limiting of music sharing software restricts artists who are starting their careers and do not have a big company to distribute their
