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Supreme Court Rules against Grokster
furry_wookie writes "A few minutes ago, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled unaniumously against Grokster today. This ruling means that developers of software violate federal copyright law when they provide computer users with the means to share music and movie files downloaded from the Internet. More info about the case here." That's not an entirely accurate statement -- what The Supremes said is that "One who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright ... is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties using the device, regardless of the device's lawful uses." The promotion is the key part of that statement.
Update: 06/27 18:00 GMT by T : Reader SilentBob4 points out this interview with EFF attorney Wendy Seltzer on the decision.
is that it wasn't even close. It was an unanimous ruling.
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So if you write a p2p app and declare it to be content-neutral (i.e "I don't care what you use it for") is that "promoting infringing uses"? What if you put a lot of ads in it saying "Sharing copyrighted material is very, Very Naughty. Please don't do it." Would that get you off the hook?
Brian Smith "Jokers and aces, bruisy and blackfern" - Steve Kilbey, Day of the Dead.
How can they directly contradict a previous ruling? How is it possible that the constitution says one thing one day and another another day... Reform time? The supreme court is becoming more and more pointless every day IMHO....
He's the first to blame for creating windows and making it possible to run programs on it that will allow for file swapping!
Except Grokster is open source. So let's say I'm using Grokster for some legal purpose, and I repackage and sell it as is legal under the GPL, and promote it myself promoting its legal purposes only. So, because OTHER PEOPLE promoted Grokster for illegal purposes, does that mean I can't distribute Grokster either? Or do they get nailed for promoting Grokster for illegal purposes and I get to keep doing my thing?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
"Come use my software for only legitimate reasons"
See? Now I'm good.
Betamax was fun while it lasted.
-- This void intentionally left null.
Does this mean that gun companies can now be held accountable when third-parties commit crimes with a gun?
The EFF has an interesting response on the situation.
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This isn't the sig you're looking for. Move along.
.. which means that Hollywood should be liable for promoting the use of guns for killing people whenever they show guns being used for killing people ..
...
Now that is something I'd like to see
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
I think the Supreme Court has made some really questionable decisions as of late. Precedent and politics rather than Constitutionality and liberty are the driving factors behind everything.
Thomas Jefferson opined in the Federalist Papers that we would not be in danger of losing our guaranteed liberties until all three branches of the government became united in their views and doctrines. It seems that we are moving in that direction, or perhaps we are already there.
I think we should wait for the text of the ruling to be posted online (to happen here) before rushing to say "the sky is falling". We'll be much wiser after reading what they had to say.
AP has a story. It seems the ruling turned on the grounds that they distributed the software "with the object of promoting infringement of copyright", and that they may be liable for third-party infringement by their users, depending on how egregious this promition was. We'll only know had bleak the future is though after reading what the justices had to say.
Now it is clear, it is legal to distribute a device to infringe copyright.
It is not legal to promote the illegal uses of that device.
This seems pretty reasonable to me. You can make the device, you just aren't allowed to actively benefit from its illegal use.
They key is promotion? So i can create the next great filesharing app so long as on my website I don't promote using it to infringe on copyright? I still think that this ruling can be used against applications like Newsleecher. They do not promote copyright infringement but the vast majority of users are using it for that purpose. Its still a great application for retrieving freeware usenet binaries (trust me, they exist).
This is definitely the important part of this ruling. It's very obvious that Kazaa, Napster, Morpheus, Grokster, Limewire et al Truly exist on a userbase of copyright infringement. Not only does it exist and they take no official notice of it, but you can easily argue that the ONLY reason for owning a copy of any of those clients is for the explicit use of copyright infringement. You can say "P2P is noble" but you can't say that Kazaa is. Bittorrent is exactly the opposite, that is, many people do abuse the tool but it's primary use is legitimate. Anyone have usage statistics for legit/illegit uses? I move upwards of 50gb in legal material every month, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.
Each processor would proceed sequentially as if it had been better for them not to rise against Saul.
While I was surprised by the 9-0 ruling, the end result isn't that shocking. Essentially, the Court ruled that, if you sell or market a product/service, and the key point of your marketing plan is that the product enables users to do something illegal, you can be held liable for the results of their actions.
Before we get into a discussion of "but is Ford liable for drunk driving," this isn't the same thing. If Ford marketed their new model, the "Boozemaster LE," which had IR sensors built into the headlights that made it easier to home in on pedestrians when you're drunk, then yes, they would be liable.
Sony won the Betamax case because they were pitching their product based on its non-infringing uses - Grokster lost because the basis of their value proposition was the infringing uses.
or am I the only confused?
^(oo)^pig~
How are you supposed to read the minds of the developers to figure out if they "intended" to promote illegal use? Almost every designer of P2P software probably knew perfectly well that the service would be used to trade illegal copies, but they also believed that distribution of legal content is also something that would be promoted. Would it have to be "primary intent" to promote illegal use or just "secondary intent" is enough?
Also, in such "dual use" cases, it's strange to say that the service must be held liable only because the creator knew that illegal uses could be made of it and openly admitted it (equivalent to "promotion"). You end up cutting out all the legal uses too. This is the sort of "chilling efects" that we don't want to happen under the 1st Amendment.
And let it get processed by the courts. That seems to be the theme this year with the Justices, not giving any solid guidelines to help out, but allowing the courts to be used time and again for sorting this sort of thing out. Far be it from me to tell these people how to do their jobs, but it does seem reasonable to expect them to let the rest of us know how to make a legal judgement in this sort of thing.
"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"
So unless you advertise that your service is useful for infringement OR you take steps to intentionally allow for infringement then this ruling doesn't affect you. That won't stop chicken little from posting that an FTP ban is around the corner though.
"The Supremes used to make sense."
I agree, "Baby Love" was a great song.
umop apisdn aw pow f,uop aseald
If I sell lock picking devices and say: "makes it so easy to break into your neighbor's house and take his stuff," I'd expect to get sued when it happens.
If I sell lock picking devices and say: "makes it so easy to get back into your house or car when you've locked the keys inside," I'd expect protection from lawsuits.
At the same time, this makes the legal environment that technology producers have to deal with more unfriendly. Companies are going to start including DMA when they otherwise might not have, just to make sure they duck lawsuits. Copyright is good. But technology is more important than copyright. I don't like the idea of effectively suppressing technology to protect content producers.
Well, hopefully the chilling effect won't be that huge. Hopefully only egregious cases like Grokster will be seen in the courts. I'm holding my breath.
If you want to read more info about this case, the EFF has a large amount of information about it on their website.. There are copies of documents, filings, articles, press conference audio etc.
-- Given enough time and money, Microsoft will eventualy invent UNIX.
But lose the war.
Even though they won the Grokster decision, the language of the decision, from what I've read..they've actually given up the whole game. Because this makes innovation actually EASIER. It might even defang the DMCA..actually I suspect it will.
See, all you have to do is market it's non-infringing use. P2P software makers, just link to people hosting public domain and publicly released stuff. That DVD copy software, for example, that was shut down because of this probably would have a pretty damn good defense under this ruling.
So what is this going to do? It's going to increase the exposure or public domain/CC/whatever material, and do nothing to shut down most of the P2P networks out there.
It's so ironic it's beyond funny.
There's an awful lot of legitimate software sharing, primarily large open-source or otherwise freely redistributable packages, over peer-to-peer networks... mainly bittorrent. Just follow slashdot for a while, just about any time a new release of something gets slashdotted, you get three posts right after each other: someone sets up a mirror, the mirror gets slashdotted so someone sets up a torrent, and then someone points out you can still get the original site through nyud.net.
On the other hand, I was absolutely amazed how long the original Napster was able to operate. The intent of the product was clearly to promote copyright violation, and to profit from them. The whole "pirate" theme from their logo on seemed like they were just begging to be prosecuted.
On the gripping hand, Grokster doesn't seem to be taking anything like the same kind of approach, so I'd like to see the basis of the decision that Grokster was distributing "a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright". I guess I'll have to wait until it's posted and/or transcribed.
2. The insane Eminent Domain ruling, making it a cinch for anyone to take anyone else's property, legally. Property rights no longer exist.
This state of affairs has been the case for many years. The ruling was a reaffirmation of the status quo. If you live in a state, city or county that can take land without review, be worried. I live in TN. All eminent domain attempts are subject to a jury trial. It is different from place to place.
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
Bram Cohen is not guilty. Tim Berners-Lee is not guilty. Settle down.
Read the opinion.
We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties.
In sum, this case is significantly different from Sony and reliance on that case to rule in favor of StreamCast and Grokster was error. Sony dealt with a claim of liability based solely on distributing a product with alternative lawful and unlawful uses, with knowledge that some users would follow the unlawful course. The case struck a balance between the interests of protection and innovation by holding that the product's capability of substantial lawful employment should bar the imputation of fault and consequent secondary liability for the unlawful acts of others.
MGM's evidence in this case most obviously addresses a different basis of liability for distributing a product open to alternative uses. Here, evidence of the distributors' words and deeds going beyond distribution as such shows a purpose to cause and profit from third-party acts of copyright infringement. If liability for inducing infringement is ultimately found, it will not be on the basis of presuming or imputing fault, but from inferring a patently illegal objective from statements and actions showing what that objective was.
The lower courts reasoned that, like VCRs, the file-sharing software can be used for "substantial" legal purposes, such as giving away free songs, free software or government documents. They also said the file-sharing services were not legally responsible because they don't have central servers pointing users to copyright material.
But in Monday's ruling, Souter said lower courts could find the file-sharing services responsible by examining factors such as how companies marketed the product or whether they took easily available steps to reduce infringing uses.
In other words, this ruling doesn't say "Grokster is responsible for the infringing acts of their customers". It says "If a company promotes a product for infringing use, the Betamax decision doesn't give them a free pass". It's up to the lower court to determine if Grokster actually crossed the line.
Opinion by Justice Souter: http://wid.ap.org/scotus/pdf/04-480P.ZO.pdf
Concurrence by Justice Ginsberg:
http://wid.ap.org/scotus/pdf/04-480P.ZC.pdf
Concurrence by Justice Breyer:
http://wid.ap.org/scotus/pdf/04-480P.ZC1.pdf
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
As for supporting performing artists, I believe that strong enforcement of copyright laws will actually damage artistic careers more than support them, much as a strict union shop will tend to limit job growth and career advancement rather than enhance them. By making it more difficult and expensive for a library to provide music recordings and videos, and for hotels, restaurants and clubs to play music over their ceiling speakers, we limit the exposure of performing artists.
Free and unsanctioned downloads of music and movies are an abuse of the superb distribution system that the internet has become, but the alternative of locking these items up so tightly with onerous legal restrictions will hamper distribution.
For example, the "buzz" that is generated by a hit comes not from people flocking to record stores and purchasing the single, but from hearing it on the radio, hearing it on a friend's stereo, and trading recordings. Cutting off this informal distribution system will damage the music industry something awful.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
These Supremes answered the wrong question. They were asked to validate or repudiate the lower court's opinion. Which was that when Grokster does not promote criminal use, the software has has "substantial legal use", Grokster does not know when an illegal transaction occurs, and Grokster does not even itself have the power to bar a specific person from making a transaction, Grokster cannot be liable for a criminal transaction by a user. And, by extension, neither can any other provider of software meeting those conditions. The lower Grokster decision did not explicitly state that Grokster must not promote criminal use, though that seems implicit in "has substantial legal use", when such a condition is nowhere mentioned explicitly. You know, like how "possession of encryption implies criminal intent".
I suppose that Grokster also must not "force users to commit crimes, including at gunpoint or through hostages or nuclear blackmail", but the Supremes did leave us all thrashing in ignorance of that detail. Likewise, we still can't be sure that Grokster can avoid liability when they do not promote crime, because we can only infer that state - which costs a lot of money for lawyers to do, with Hollywood now making an industry out of propagandizing that implication.
Perhaps the lower court, to which the Supremes' decision returns the case for a new decision with their "advice", will find that Grokster is not liable, because it did not promote criminal use. Then MGM will take the case back to the Supremes (the 2008 remix). And perhaps the Supremes will reject hearing the new case, having heard it already. Then, like the Schiavos, MGM will keep their case under reconsideration for years. Grokster and the rest of us in the lower courts will spend a lot of money defending under this ambiguous ruling, and the entire P2P and streaming industries, not to mention software in general, will operate under the uncertainty that an ax could fall on our necks any June for the next decade. Thanks, you cranky ancient prima donnas with lifetime immunity from accountability! The rest of us have to live with your work for our entire lives, without that guaranteed paycheck. We really spend a lot of money on these Supreme Court justices, for them to produce such a shabby product.
Now, on the heels of that blatantly criminal "eminent domain" ruling, Conservatives will be screaming for new Supremes who "respect property rights" and "hold individuals responsible for their actions". When Bush appoints the most corporate Supremes we can imagine, and puts Clarence Thomas in charge of the court, we'll be stuck with the most corporate court ever, with the most corporate Congress ever, and the most corporate White House possible. Unless Democrats can take back the House and Senate next year, and deliver at least some of the competition with teeth that checks and balances our mechanical government, this country is doomed. And everyone else within its reach - which means everyone else. Funny how that particular blockbuster movie won't be coming out of MGM studios this Summer.
--
make install -not war
I have to agree with this ruling even though XEROX may not have been able to pass the smell test.
Clearly XEROX purpose in building a copier was so that people can make legitimate copies of documents.
In the digital world this also can be the objective of file sharing. Please have a look at www.irtc.org
We are now at the point where individuals and groups can create their own copyrighted material. IE. We don't need hollywood or the RIAA. A for instance is the Greatful Dead would gladly have glombed on to a system that file shares.
So - I do not see this ruling as being much of a problem.
I
Take a deep breath there chicken little. You're typing so fast your dyslexia is running rampant. As a previous poster(and submission editor) has pointed out, the text of the ruling says that you cannot "Promote" infringing use. This may be good. It doesn't kill P2P, it kills blatant promotion of copyright materials or circumvention. Well, just don't promote the bad side of the applications uses. Kind of like Smith and Wesson, they don't have bullet ridden dead bodies on there main page (I'm a little lazy and I didn't fact check this, its just a hunch) however their products have the potential to leave such a scene. Sure it's illegal to mass murder, but you shouldn't promote that your product has such potential.
ok went a little far with the dead body analogy.
I only mod up parents of "mod parent up" posts...
> promoting its use to DO BODILY HARM
... is liable for the resulting acts of CRIME by third parties using the device, regardless of the device's lawful uses."
Nope, because it's not illegal to do bodily harm. Self-defense may require it. Police and security personnel, and the municipalities that procure them their weapons, could be properly lured by advertisements that promised "bodily harm". But try this out:
"One who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to COMMIT A CRIME
Make sense now? Once you read it that way, it makes a lot more sense. If I sell you something by saying it will let you break the law, then I can't fall back on its lawful uses once you use it the way I said you should.
Expect an impact on the makers of "radar" detectors.
sigs, as if you care.
The way I read Souter's opinion, he feels that:
Sony is often interpreted as:"Substantial non-infringing uses are an automatic off the hook. for contributory infringement."
But what it really should be is: "The existence of non-infringing uses is just one piece of evidence you can use to try to determine whether a 'conspiracy to commit copyright infringement' occured. But you can also look at whether the company intended, from day one, to be a tool for infringment.
A quote from Souter's opinion:
"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."
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So, I _think_ we're okay. If it really was designed from day one to be a content-neutral system like http or ftp, then no problem. But if you actively marketed to copyright infringers, you can't just use Sony as a "get out of jail free" card.
I'd have prefered a "Yay free speech, down with copyright" opinion myself, but it's not as bad as it could be.
http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/27jun20051 200/www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/04pdf/04-480.p df
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The ruling has been posted as one PDF file.
Exactly correct. It's a pretty limited decision, specific to Grokster's business model. The next P2P company that comes along just has to do a better job of advertising their product for the purpose of exchanging legally exchangeable files.
:)
In the very near future, you'll see companies begin to develop and push P2P as a way for people to publish/distribute their own content. The whole podcasting thing is what will make this happen. And with people starting to push into the video realm (Systm, etc) , this will become the defense of the next P2P battle.
Think about it: Somebody creates a client that can grab RSS, publish RSS, share content via BitTorrent/DHT, get content via same, play video/audio/everything under the sun, and integrates into MythTV just for good measure.
The primary, stated, purpose of such a thing is to let people download the free content online and watch it on their spiffy PVR box.
The actual primary use would be to download TV shows and movies and such from other users of the software, using the BitTorrent capabilities inherent in the software (although video-blog type RSS feeds would be in second or third place).
In any case, the revolution will be podcasted.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Lessee... In the last 24 hours
1. Innovation and development of Internet products in America has been stifled, and the future of such products thrown into doubt by the Supreme Courts decisions. Why develop a better Bit Torrent (or whatever) in this country, when you can now be taken to court by very deep pocketed companies who have nothing better to do that sue you into bankruptcy, based on this ruling?
2. The Supreme Court has also managed to further protect the bacon by making it so that cops can't be sued based on how poorly they enforce, or fail to protect people with restraining orders. So, for existence, your sister gets a restraining order against her ex-husband, and as she's on the phone calling for help, as the cops haven't responded to her first two calls, her ex shoots her.
Well... You can no longer blame the cops for this, which IMHO makes restraining orders completely useless. If there's no ramifications to them when they don't enforce these orders, what's the point in having them? There's now 0 incentive for cops to drop their donuts and do their duty, when it comes to victims of stalking and such. What are you going to do about it? Can't sue them into doing their job... Might as well buy a gun and protect yourself if you're in such a position, as there's no guarantee that a restraining order will help in any way.
Of course, if you're rich, and have the influence to affect future police funding, and/or influence public opinion, you're almost guaranteed that the cops will be very vigilant in protecting you. It's the average person who loses out here.
3. Cable companies no longer have to share their lines. On one hand this may mean more services from them for slightly less money. On the more realistic side, it means less options for you, the consumer, if the cable company decides to go the other way and raise your rates. Ain't it funny how so many of the decisions since Bush took office favor big business, and lock out the little guys?
4. Reporters can no longer protect their sources due to anotehr ruling today. They can, but they'll face jail time. In the long run this'll mean less people will come forward with info on wrongdoing's, which means big money gets away with more illegal activities....
5. And finally, let's not forget last weeks shit ruling wherein Walmart, Target, and any other retailer now can, or at least has the potential to take your house and land away from your in order to build more stores, in order to make themselves richer.
Yes, you'll be compensated if this happens, but that does nothing to help those who don't want to be displaced. It also means that any compensation received is at a government-set level. The same government who gives all kinds of tax breaks an incentives to such business's to get them to move into your neighborhood in the 1st place.
Seriously... Dickhead Bush and his money-mongering ilk are taking away our freedoms and liberties, not to mention our loved ones via his vendetta against Iraq, while he and his cronies grow fatter and richer.
I'm not one to really point fingers and go on about politics, but America is quickly losing everything that made us a superpower. At this rate, we will soon have a very rich, ruling elite, while the average person lives in rented propertys supporting them. Meanwhile tomorrows technological advances, and the money and power that goes with such things, will be coming from places such as China and India, which coincidentally are becoming superpowers due to all the money and business we're giving them.
In essence, we are funding our own demise, while the Bush's, and the Walmarts of the world kick back and fund more laws which limit our freedoms, while expanding their interests. Sad times indeed...
Bravo. What is it with our culture now? Making mature, considered decisions about something, decisions that require other parties to consider them outside the world of newsbites and so on, is now considered a sign of weakness, is it?!?
A moral person isn't someone who makes a confusion of rash, instinctive decisions about right and wrong. Moral people struggle to figure out what to do, and often their decisions are qualified by the stuff they've considered along the way. It's called being a danged adult.
The Supreme Court, for all the current right-wing majority's nascent authoritarian learnings, is not in the business of sweeping decisions that reach far beyond the cases brought before them. Their 10 Commandments decision's coming up, and they're not going to be extending it to cover "In God We Trust" and evolution in schools just because they want to take a stand. There's a process, and it's not weak or waffly to follow it.
How mature are we, anyway?
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Justice Ginsburg's concurring opinion (The Chief Justice and Justice Kennedy joining in) argues for revisiting Sony at some later date in the direction that the content cartel want to, with 90% infringement being enough to ban a technology.
Justice Breyer's concurring opinion (Justices Stevens and O'Connor joining) rebuts Ginsburg and points out that the trial record from Sony also identified about 90% infringing uses! Rather changes the picture. More interesting, they also point to evolving positive uses of P2P for non-infringing distribution [1] and expect that, as with VCRs, noninfringing uses will grow with time. In other words, much what the EFF and others have argued.
This one ain't over yet. It looks like the Court is pretty evenly split and just ducked the question today.
[1] Notably, they cite Linux.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
The Iraqi insurgents seem to have no problem giving us fits with basic assault rifles and homemade bombs. Obviously the same could work in the USA if the citizens were behind it.
This is my sig.
The judgment is available here (linked to from here). That includes the summary, Souter's opinion, and the two concurring opinions. Other people have already talked about the important parts of Souter's opinion, but I found the concurrences just as interesting (though less important).
The first concurrence, Ginsburg's (page 30 of the above file), sounded pretty dangerous to me. It lists over a page of evidence for non-infringing uses (pages 34-35) and then immediately dismisses at all without considering it. It doesn't even talk of the dangers to new technologies. But the last paragraph is the scariest. "If, on remand, the case is not resolved on summary judgment in favor of MGM... the Court... should reconsider, on a fuller record, its interpretation of Sony's product distribution holding. Now, IANAL at all, but that sounds pretty bad.
The second concurrence (page 38), also by three judges, is a lot nicer to me. Pages 42 and 44 have long lists of non-infringing uses including books, Linux software, and things licensed under Creative Commons. It even says that Grokster is protected by the Sony standard. It goes on to talk about how the Sony standard has been a fairly good one. It talks of how both non-infringing uses of Grokster and use of legal programs (like iTunes) will grow. It's still a concurring opinion, but the tone is much more mindful of protecting technology and looking forward to the future, a view that was missing from the first concurrence.
... after all, they've a full-page ad in the Wired magazine touting Windows XP for ripping music, remixing it, and sharing ti with our friends. Windows XP makes it easy, if I recall correctly.
That would seem to qualify.
The SCOTUS decision is going to open a huge can of worms. Many ISPs have, for years, sold their broadband service as something that helps you download music at blazing speeds (long before legal services were available) and they permit you to download all sorts of images and content as well as upload content without any sorts of release forms, etc.
If the media companies wanted to, they've got the ammunition now to simply block public access (in the US) to the Internet until a new technology could be developed to limit data exchange to something they approve of.
Killing human beings in a very few circumstances, is permitted by law -- most notably self-defense. There have been many cases of criminals wearing body armor.
In the courts opinion, it is reasonable to think that a citizen may have a legitimate usage for armor-piercing bullets. If a ammo manufacturer advertized their bullets as being "cop-killers" then they would be more analogous to the people who distribute a p2p system with the advertizing of "find any song, movie, show etc."
You're arguing about gun-control in general, which is actually counter to what you're (I think) advocating. The same defense that keeps guns legal -- there is in certain circumstances a legal reason to have a gun -- is the same arguement that will protect p2p as a whole. There IS a set of circumstances in which p2p can be legally justified, and thus the whole technology cannot and will not be banned. Just as legally, there ARE restrictions on how guns can be used, there are going to be legal restrictions on how p2p can be used.
Do I agree with this p2p ruling? Not really, I don't personally support the current copyright law, but as a member of the Supreme Court, I'll answer your question. We don't value anything more than individual liberty, because life without liberty is an abhorrent concept. We ruled against people promoting breaking the law, and not against p2p. How else COULD we have ruled?
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm
Let me see here. What ammunition specifically are you talking about? Virtually any round fire from a rifle has the power to penetrate a 'bullet-proof' vest. They are only designed to stop handgun bullets. And that's about all they do.
The same ammunition used in common hunting rifles would slice through a kevlar vest like butter. If, perhaps, you are referring to the 5.7x28mm pistol round that was recently making the frenzied media headlines, the steel-cored version can't be sold here.
Yet, I do.
If I sell a gun and all my ads say, "Kids, you can kill your parents tonight with our new Blasto 350", I am encouraging murder. "Kids download all your favorite songs for free with Grokster." I am encouraging copyright infringement, (according to current copyright interpretation.)
That is clearly illegal. (MPAA/RIAA and the Grokster-ilk are both equivalent whores in my book, since they are all trying to make money off of someone elses sweat.)
You could also see how programs that might preload searches of "Currently Showing Hollywood films", are just begging you to download copyrighted material.
On the other hand, a program like eMule, Freenet, etc. is clearly very generic and doesn't care what you download or share, and makes no money off of it.
I see nothing in this that effects Bittorrent, eMule, or the other non-profit file sharing apps at all.
I thought for sure when I saw they had ruled against Grokster that the reading of their ruling would break my heart, yet instead, I feel all the bad people are hurt by this, and the good are unharmed. (Citizens can continue to download and share what they wish to, MPAA/RIAA will continue in the precipitous downfall, and Grokster-leaches will go out of business.)
- I like pudding.
The quote on the front page comes from the CNN/Money Krysten Crawford article, and is partially fabricated.
... is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties using the device, regardless of the device's lawful uses."
"One who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright
The words, "using the device, regardless of the device's lawful uses" are not part of the ruling, and as many others have pointed out here, it's actually fairly misleading. I won't speculate on Ms. Crawford's motivations for the misquote, other than that she's probably just a confused journalist who thinks it's OK to bend ethical rules to get a story out.
Umm dude, speaking as one of the people who "brutally" put down the revolution (D Co, 1/149 Armor, CA ARNG), it was nothing of the sort. It was a bunch of people out to destroy and steal what they could while the police were overwhelmed. They had no political agenda beyond "I want that TV" or "I want to burn down that shop". Look at some of the TV interviews with looters during the riots- they're quite honest about what they were doing.
As far as being brutally put down, my unit despite being in one of the absolute worst areas of LA (Rampart) did not fire a shot, and indeed never used physical force beyond rounding up some illegal immigrants. (INS had a field day) The rioters in our area were in far more danger from the Korean storeowners who were armed to the teeth and not afraid to shoot back. There were a few bad instances (one about two blocks from my HQ) but the Guard had all the free food we could eat- people were stopping us on the streets to thank us for being there.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"