p2pnet - rss feed: Grokster v Hollywood, reloaded
p2pnet.net News:- About the only thing Hollywood hasn’t thrown into the fray as it desperately tries to get the US Supreme Court to overturn a decision already agreed by two other courts, is the kitchen sink.
Oral arguments in the MGM v Grokster will be heard on March 29 when Hollywood will again try to use its financial and political might to browbeat America’s top court into ruling p2p companies can be held responsible if customers use their p2p software to infringe copyrights.
The studios, with the Big Music cartel and major software companies right behind them, have already lost the argument in District Court, and again at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Now the, “Bush administration’s top lawyer and the Christian Coalition threw their weight behind the entertainment industry,” says ZDNet, which also points out:
“Although focused on the issue of file swapping, the Supreme Court case is likely to be one of the most widely watched legal tussles in the technology world this year. Legal observers say the outcome of the case could affect virtually every consumer electronics and computer manufacturer, as well as software and entertainment companies.”
That explains why such deeply involved bodies as Concerned Women for America and Morality in Media are backing the entertainment industry.
In the meanwhile, “Twenty-eight of the world’s largest entertainment companies brought the lawsuit against the makers of the Morpheus, Grokster, and KaZaA software products, aiming to set a precedent to use against other technology companies (P2P and otherwise),” says the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) which is representing Morpheus owner StreamCast Networks.
“As we noted in our arguments before the Ninth Circuit, the case raises a question of critical importance at the border between copyright and innovation: When should the distributor of a multi-purpose tool be held liable for the infringements that may be committed by end-users of the tool?”
The Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Sony Corporation of America v Universal City Studios (the Sony Betamax ruling) ruled a distributor can’t held liable for users’ infringement as long as the ‘tool’ is capable of substantial noninfringing uses.
“In MGM v. Grokster, the Ninth Circuit found that P2P file-sharing software is capable of, and is in fact being used for, noninfringing uses,” says the EFF. “Relying on the Betamax precedent, the court ruled that the distributors of Grokster and Morpheus software cannot be held liable for users’ copyright violations. The plaintiffs appealed, and in December 2004 the Supreme Court granted certiorari.”
Visit the EFF’s MGM v Grokster site for chapter and verse.
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See:-
weight - Conservatives back Hollywood, ZDNet, January 24, 2005
January 25th, 2005 at 5:05 pm
So if the media slime wins this will that mean that gun manufacturers can be held responsible for the crimes commited using their products?
Seriously.
January 25th, 2005 at 6:30 pm
sound like it to me….. someone better tell the NRA
January 25th, 2005 at 7:21 pm
grokster?? oh yeah i remember them from the dark ages of p2p
January 26th, 2005 at 1:30 pm
Will a favorable (to Hollywood) decision by the Supreme Court backfire? Yes, in MANY WAYS.
Some examples:
1. Makers of DVD players, DVD recorder, blank DVDs and television sets may not be able to continue their sales because all of these can be used for significant infringement. Then the biggest market for the motion picture industry will simply dry up.
2. If only file sharing is discriminated against and is prohibited or made impractical through court mandates, and assuming the prohibition is effective, people will turn to DVD burning. Burned DVD are easier to spread around than downloaded movies because most people do not have the capability to download movies. Here is the scenario: Visit your friend to borrow DVD from his/her vast collection of copied movies. Next week you lend your DVDs to your friend.
3. If the rest of the world does not play along with american courts, eventually the american product (movies) will fall in disfavor throughout the world because of politics and bad publicity.
Certainly the motion picture and the music industries are in a quandary it logically follows that they would like to protect their interest. I sympathise with that. So were the typewriter makers (and their employees) in a quandaty when the personal computer came along. I sympathised with them too, for they lost all their jobs and investments. Too bad progress cannot be stopped.
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com
January 26th, 2005 at 2:05 pm
It will also backfire on the already discredited American court system which is made up of strictly political appointees who continually contradicts themselves. Backing out of the Sony-Betamax decision to favor Hollywood (and ironically Sony this time around as a movie maker) would be another contradiction. Surely if there was not a lot of cash involved the court would not even be considering backing out of its Sony-Betamax decision. Of course, as supreme beings they can back uot of anything. All that is needed is the fancy wording American courts are known for, and that no two lawyers agree as to their meaning (great to inflate lawyer fees), to justify what was decided.
It will also backfire on the American congress who cannot write straight laws that continually need court decicions to establish the law means in a confusing manner. This ia all great to inflate lawyer fees. This time around is the copyright law that need to be revised by the courts to clarify what the word “infringement” means.