RIAA, MPAA Lose Suit Against Streamcast and Grokster

ha-reed writes "News.com is reporting that a federal court judge in Los Angeles has handed down a ruling that Streamcast Networks (the company that makes Morpheus) and Grokster are not liable for copyright infringements due to files that are traded with their software. The judge made the comparison between file sharing software and VCR's that many supporters of file sharing often use." EFF has the decision (1.4Mb PDF) online (and a .torrent is here in case eff.org melts, which it won't). See our most recent story about the lawsuit.

Comments

This is the kind of mindset every judge needs

[Kethinov]

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm tired of reading stories about people being struck down by the exploitation of copyright laws. So I'm glad at least one judge out there realizes that file sharing is not something that should be illegal!

The central issue with pirated media is the fact that the masses simply don't want to pay for it anymore and are circumventing the business model of the distributors. It IS illegal and it borders on unethical but it is what it is. You can either fight it or use it to your advantage. And if I were the music/movie industry I'd start distributing my media for free on the net myself embedded with ads in unintrusive spots. The people would as a result like me and I'd profit from the net instead of having to waste my profits fighting it.

But let's face it, neither option is going to profit the oligopolized music/movie industry as much as it was profiting 20 years ago. Times change. They need to adapt or go out of business. This messing around with legislation just makes it worse and the pirating more rampant.

Remember Napster? Now theres Kazaa, Winmx, Gnutella, direct connect, need I go on?

My hope is that some day all the judges will strike down the greedy music industry et al. They're not fighting because they're "loosing money." They're fighting because they're loosing control. They're loosing control of their oligopoly and price fixing due to this new technology called the internet.

Home Simpson says...

[Rai]

"Woohoo! In your face, RIAA!"