(no subject)

[jgrafton]

When I first heard the news of the Grokster Supreme Court decision today, I was initially a bit concerned. I hadn't really been following the case, and what I gleaned from the nightly news suggested that anybody who provided services which could be used illegally for copyright infringement could be held liable.

After doing some research, I'm feeling a little better, though I'm still somewhat worried. The Supreme Court argued that because the P2P networks so highly encouraged the illegal file sharing, they could be held responsible, and it was not the core technology that was to blame. This still seems like a rather thin line, and I'm worried it could be applied elsewhere and have greater impacts. Other services, such as BitTorent, come to mind as next likely targets. I hope such widely used applications such as web servers and ftp servers never come under scrutiny, but I'm still fairly worried.

It will be interesting to see how the recording industry plays this one out, for sure. I'm not sure much of what I can do, besides perhaps making a donation to the EFF.

Comments

[illix.livejournal.com]

Technically, what the Court did was vacate the Ninth Circuit Court's judgement that Grokster and Streamcast could not be sued, on the grounds that Grokster and Streamcast had actively encouraged infringing uses of their software. They made a point of saying that the Sony rule is still valid for technologies where there is substantial noninfringing use and the manufacturers do not actively encourage infringing uses. It's a bit unclear whether or not it's enough to no encourage infringing use, or whether the manufacturer must actively discourage it.

If you would like to read an amateur and slightly incoherent account of the oral arguments, I wrote them up here.

[twizmer.livejournal.com]

I don't know nearly enough to have an opinon about Grokster/Streamcast's actions as far as promoting illegal use, but as far as principle goes it seems like a reasonable ruling. ...unlike Kelo.

[jgrafton]

Having done a little bit more research on the matter, I am feeling better tonight. Justice Breyer's response has given me some hope, so I guess it isn't quite the end of the world yet. (Oh how melodramatic I am.)

Also, the oral arguments were nice. Kinda a shame that I've never really gone into DC, despite having lived here for so long...