Copyright and patent authority is explicitly granted to the Federal government by Art. I, Sec. 8 of the US constitution:
The Congress shall have Power ... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
As such, state courts and police forces have no jurisdiction over copyright issues; they must be handled by the federal courts and police force (the FBI).
I assume it's because Napster was the first to really take file-sharing global and at such an accessible scale. And maybe the laws and enforcement procedures hadn't really caught up. But keep in mind, that Napsters defense was that they were just acting as an intermediary, they never actively distributed and held the content unlike our heroes at JetFlix.
Comments
Copyright and patent authority is explicitly granted to the Federal government by Art. I, Sec. 8 of the US constitution:
The Congress shall have Power ... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
As such, state courts and police forces have no jurisdiction over copyright issues; they must be handled by the federal courts and police force (the FBI).
(Text from https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcri... )
Why didn't FBI get involved against Napster?
I assume it's because Napster was the first to really take file-sharing global and at such an accessible scale. And maybe the laws and enforcement procedures hadn't really caught up. But keep in mind, that Napsters defense was that they were just acting as an intermediary, they never actively distributed and held the content unlike our heroes at JetFlix.