|
FILE-SHARING RULING WILL NOT STOP ILLEGAL DOWNLOADING
OF MUSIC AND VIDEO FILES
by Bob
Lowe
July 27, 2005
The Supremes have spoken.
The
nation’s highest court issued its
decision in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios v. Grokster
case on June 27, unanimously declaring that Grokster and
its competitor, StreamCast, which runs the Morpheus file-sharing
site, could be held liable for their users illegally duplicating
copyrighted digital media such as CDs, DVD and MP3 music
files.
The Justices said Grokster and Morpheus were used overwhelmingly
to trade pirated music and movies from the Internet and may
have even encouraged it.
The two firms had argued that the software they produced
was legal under Sony v. Universal City Studios. This is a
1984 Supreme Court case that ruled VCRs were legal, despite
concerns that they could be used to pirate movies, videos
and TV programs.
At
the time, the court based its decision on the fact that
the VCR was "capable of substantial non-infringing uses" like
time-shifting to enable consumers to record programs for
later viewing. VCRs also are frequently used quite legitimately
to play movies and other video products that are legally
purchased or rented from video stores.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco
had sided with Grokster and StreamCast, arguing that the
file-sharing software had uses that did not infringe on copyrighted
materials. Because the software operates in a decentralized
manner without using a central computer and because Grokster
and StreamCast could not track users and had no direct knowledge
of any specific violation of copyright laws, the appeals
court said it could not be held liable for the behavior of
users who illegally downloaded the software.
But
Justice David H. Souter said the record was "replete
with evidence" that the two companies "acted with
a purpose to cause copyright violations by use of software
suitable for illegal uses." He said "the probable
scope of copyright infringement is staggering." |
