To download a desired file, the user highlights it on the list and clicks the "Get Selected Song(s)" button. The user may also view a list of files that exist on another user's hard drive and select a file from that list. When the requesting user clicks on the name of a file, the Napster server communicates with the requesting user's and host user's2 MusicShare browser software to facilitate a connection between the two users and initiate the downloading of the file without any further action on either user's part.(gigalaw #1).
Napster's deffence to the copyright infringment is that "its business activities fall within the safe harbor provided by subsection 512(a). This subsection limits liability "for infringement of copyright by reason of the [service] provider's transmitting, routing, or providing connections for, material through a system or network controlled or operated by or for the service provider, or by reason of the intermediate and transient storage of that material in the course of such transmitting, routing, or providing connections," if five conditions are satisfied:".
(1) the transmission of the material was initiated by or at the direction of a person other than the service provider;.
(2) the transmission, routing, provision of connections, or storage is carried out through an automatic technical process without selection of the material by the service provider; .
(3) the service provider does not select the recipients of the material except as an automatic response to the request of another person; .
(4) no copy of the material made by the service provider in the course of such intermediate or transient storage is maintained on the system or network in a manner ordinarily accessible to anyone other than the anticipated recipients, and no such copy is maintained on the system or network in a manner ordinarily accessible to such anticipated recipients for a longer period than is reasonably necessary for the transmission, routing, or provision of connections; and.