High Court Agrees to Hear File-Sharing Dispute

Posted by michael on Friday December 10, 2004 @05:05PM from the two-paths-diverged-in-a-wood dept.

stkpogo pastes: "The Supreme Court agreed Friday to consider whether two Internet file-sharing services may be held responsible for their customers' online swapping of copyrighted songs and movies. Justices will review a lower ruling in favor of Grokster Ltd. and StreamCast Networks Inc., which came as a blow to recording companies and movie studios seeking to stop the illegal distribution of their works." Grokster won in the lower courts, but the studios are appealing. This case, when finally decided, will be equivalent to the Betamax case 20 years ago which ensured that VCRs were legal.

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BitTorrent To Be Next Target by s7uar7 · 2004-12-10 19:04 · Score: 5, Interesting

It looks like BitTorrent may be next on the list. MPAA spokesman declines to say whether the trade group intends to sue Cohen. They'd have a harder time proving that BitTorrent is primarily used for copyright infringement though, due to the many legitimate uses.