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RIAA, MPAA Lose Suit Against Streamcast and Grokster

Posted by michael on from the we-can't-lose-them-all dept.

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.

3 of 591 comments (clear)

  1. Judge Wilson by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Judge Wilson, who decided this case, is known as a libertarian. He's no corporate stooge, as some have suggested, just becasue he ruled that Kazaa can be sued in the US.

    Now that we finally got some results on the merits, we can see that we may actually be in good hands here.

  2. They did it 20 years ago by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    The Supreme Court: Sony vs. Univeral - "The sale of the VTR's to the general public does not constitute contributory infringement of respondents' copyrights."

  3. Re:What else has he decided before? by NetDanzr · · Score: 5, Informative
    Actually, the same judge is deciding the Kazaa tial, and it seems that he will be siding with Kazaa.

    Other cases that were handled by Judge Willson hint to the fact that he is one of the few liberal and pro-Internet (as in "in favor of freedom of individual Internet users") in the country.