US Supreme Court Rules Against P2P

mr_angry

Bad news for file-sharers. Even worse news for the creators of file-sharing software...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/06/27/p2p_goes_down/

TheRegister wrote:

The US Supreme Court has ruled unanimously against the free-wheeling ways of P2P software makers Grokster and StreamCast in a decision that will have many of the most vocal open technology advocates up in arms.

The ruling means that developers of P2P software can be held liable for their users' actions and that the software makers must work to prevent the distribution of copyrighted material. Two lower courts had already ruled that P2P software showed enough non-infringing uses for it to be protected under the well-known 1984 Sony ruling that permitted the sale of the VCR. The Supreme Court, however, disagreed with the lower courts, saying that they took too broad an interpretation on Sony and that the P2P firms made little to no effort to curb illegal file-trading.



"We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by the clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties," Justice David H. Souter wrote.

This decision sends the case back to a lower court where judges will revisit the request of the movie and music companies - represented by MGM - to declare P2P software makers liable for their users' copyright violations.

"There is substantial evidence in MGM's favor on all elements of inducement, and summary judgment in favor of Grokster and StreamCast was error," Souter wrote. "On remand, reconsideration of MGM's motion for summary judgment will be in order. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion."

arbeitsscheuer

Damn... That can't be good...
F**king Supreme Court. Supremely fascist more like. From the home of democracy and freedom - yeah, right.

Mutant_Fruit

[SWEEPING_GENERALISATION]

Well, i think its time to start sueing apple for making iPods too. Their advertising to download music to fill their players is inducing me to illegally obtain music, because no-one can afford to buy enough cd's to fill a 60gb mp3 player at 128kbps. Also, lets sue harddrive makers. Because the only reason people need big harddrives is to store all their illegally obtained music. They're inducing me to buy bigger harddrives!

[/SWEEPING_GENERALISATION]

Scruff

Its not as bad at it reads. A later story poste dhas some analysis on it:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/06/27/supremes_punt_on_grokster/

The US Supreme Court declined to decide the Grokster/MGM case, effectively sending it back to the district level, but not without adding clarifications no doubt intended to simplify the lower court's work, but almost certain to add another layer of confusion.

The Court did not weaken the Sony decision in any way, as had been feared, and left alone the principle that a significant non-infringing use suffices to make a technology legal.

But even though a technology might be legal under the Sony principles, a company's behavior might not be, and this is the issue that the Supremes have effectively ordered the lower court to rule on. It is possible, the Court noted, for a company whose product passes the Sony test to be guilty of inducement to violate copyrights. But P2P software is not, in itself, infringing.

Insofar as this decision focuses attention on the murky issue of intent, it is a victory for the labels and other copyright holders, because defending against accusations of inducement is difficult and expensive, even if the defendant is innocent. Thus lawsuits, or the mere threat of lawsuits, from industry behemoths with deep pockets can crush small-fry companies, however innocent of inducement they might be. But the real victors here, as usual, are lawyers. It will take considerable litigation to settle all the fine points of the Supremes' ruling.

However, it is important to note that P2P software per se has not been found illegal on any technological basis, and probably never will thanks to the Grokster decision. The courts will not be ruling on the technology overall, as the labels would like them to do, but will likely apply Sony to individual products, and, if they should pass those tests, move on to issues of inducement to infringe by the makers.

arbeitsscheuer

Ah right, that seems much less draconian.
Cheers for clearing that up Scruff.

So what will happen next?
Lawsuits "from industry behemoths with deep pockets" or something less severe?

nadir

is it possible to sue providers/companies for making/allowing software that runs ftp and http, that would rule.
are they just going to shut down the internet.
seriously though, all the serious warez monkeys still use (s)ftp servers.
where does it stop?
torrents are widely used for sharing linux izons, their original use actually.
the whole thing is just rediculous.

mr_angry

Insofar as this decision focuses attention on the murky issue of intent, it is a victory for the labels and other copyright holders, because defending against accusations of inducement is difficult and expensive, even if the defendant is innocent.

And herein lies the problem - who the hell is going to make a file-sharing application in the future? The answer is "nobody", because the makers would have to spend more time building in preventative measures against copyright infringement than actually making the thing work, and would probably still face litigation, and have to spend millions in court trying to prove that they made reasonable effort.

Zaph0d

Unless every country bans all file sharing clients, the ruling is irrelevant. A user doesn't care what country Limewire is based in.

SparkyLarks

Does the case come down to how the service is advertised???

It reminds me of when someone sued the Gun manufacturers after their son was killed ina gangland shooting.

Basically the gun company got screwed because they had resistant to finger prints on the advertising. The company said it was an anti corrosion measure or something but the court found that saying resistant to finger prionts made the gun apealing to criminals .

maybe that was a movie though.

Basically from what I've read the supreme court has no problem with file sharing or file shaing software. But it does have a problem with a company that promotes it's product by promoting illegal activities.

Have I read the reports right???

stevenmu

That's what I understood from it anyway, I heard on the news last night that Morpheus is going to contain messages discouraging users from illegally downloading music and encouraging them to use legal paid-for downloads. That seemed to be enough to cover them.

Goldstein

It's slightly ironic that Sony, the plaintiff defending its Betamax technology in the famous "Sony Case" in 1984, is today the parent company of MGM, the plaintiff attacking P2P technology today.

There's an amusing report on the Sky News website about the case:
http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,31500-1187146,00.html

America's highest court has ruled that file-sharing websites are a breach of copyright.

The companies who run the internet file-trading networks can now be held liable when their users share music and movies without permission.

which is of course, complete rubbish and not the case at all.

An important section of the decision is in footnote #12:

"Of course, in the absence of other evidence of intent, a court would be unable to find contributory infringement liability merely based on a failure to take affirmative steps to prevent infringement, if the device otherwise was capable of substantial noninfringing uses. Such a holding would tread too close to the Sony safe harbor." (Referring to the Sony case of 1984)

Bad for Grokster yes, but not really that bad for p2p in general. They'll just have to tweak the advertising and business plans a bit, to make sure they're not "encouraging" people to share copyrighted material.

rabbitinlights

Does this affect Bit torrents?

CyberGhost

it affects all p2p

all those damn lazy greedy hollywood bastards are blaming p2p, lucas's film sucked and nobody went to see it? who to blame? himself for making a ****ty movie? oh no, let's blame p2p!

I will NEVER, NEVER pay 25 euro for an audio cd, when it costs them peanuts, and they are making huge profits, I don't if they take the whole internet down, I'm still not going to pay.

juliuspret

I still remember paying in the early €20's for albums a couple of years ago.

Get them from CD Wow these days...do shops still charge around €25 for albums these days or have they stopped being greedy b!£"$rd's???

J-blk

juliuspret wrote:

...do shops still charge around €25 for albums these days or have they stopped being greedy b!£"$rd's???

Yep - or even greedier .

Still, this is far from over - the Sky News take on things is a good perspective though on how your average computer newbie will see this. But, what newbie is a warez monger anyway so no difference there.

The recording/film industry though should really get off the suing bandwagon and try some innovation instead...

I prefer my music in digital form anyway - I haven't had a CD player in years. But (legal) online music stores out there don't have the price, the features and the usabillity (think DRM or ITunes locking you to an IPod) to become viable alternatives to P2P anyway...

Always a sad day when these industry giants are rewarded for the practices that kill any and all innovation...

angelofdeath

yet they don't hold gun manufacturers liable for the deaths their products cause