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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.
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.
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
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.
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.
"The supreme court is becoming more and more pointless every day IMHO"
That might be true if you didn't take a moment to realize that our legislatures are more interested in corporate giveaways and popularity contests, and the American public is so apathetic, it's basically abdicated its responsibility as citizens to instead become consumers and ratings numbers.
In that light, I think the courts are forced to be the adults around here, whether they want to be or not.
It's actually not a response. That came out several days ago. I'd been expecting it on Slashdot but it never came.
Direct away from face when opening.
From a legal perspective, that makes sense. Bittorrent has always been about just "large file distribution" and was initially pushed as an alternative for downloading movie trailers, large Linux distributions, etc. It's gotten a fair amount of traction among a great deal of media sites as a fantastic way for distributing their work. It just so happens that it can be used for illegal purposes, like other technology.
That's a far cry from some p2p software's claims of "Find any song, any movie, any show, in seconds!" Bittorrent was introduced as a means for downloading big files. Plenty of other p2p software was introduced almost explicitly for downloading copyrighted material, and advertised as such.
So while the ruling initially sounds like a blow to p2p software, the wording shows that it's simply a blow to software made and distributed expressly for infringing copyrights. I can understand how "if you're encouraging copyright infringement with your software you're just as guilty" can lead to unanimous agreement.
"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.
The reason being is because the justices of the Supreme Court (well some of them) don't judge on the basis of the constitutional text alone. The Constitution says nothing about Fair Use, filesharing, computers, the internet, or p2p. What they decide on is part constitution and part existing culture and similar law in otehr countries. When the Supreme Court struck down the death penalty for minors, one of the points made was that no other developed country allowed the death penalty for minors.
Direct contradiction of previous rulings are the norm. In it's history, the Supreme Court first upheld segregation (Seperate but Equal) and then struck it down (Brown vs. Board of Ed). The lawyers for the Brown side of the case didn't argue on the basis of the constitution or whether or not the Equal side of Seperate but Equal was being fulfilled (which it wasn't), but on the basis of the inethicality of segregation.
And finally, this case doesn't direct contradict a previous ruling (unless your referening someting other than the Betamax decision). In Betamax, the Court ruled that a device (or it's creators) isn't liable for copyright infringement if it has substantial noningringing use under the doctrine of Fair Use. It set a litmus test under which, if something is found to be primarily working within Fair Use, it is not liable for a non-Fair Use infringement, but if it is found to be primarily used to infringe copyright, it is liable. Using this litmus test, the Supreme Court found Grokster to fail.
Free MacMini
If a bank inadvertedly (and after taking reasonable steps to ensure it doesn't happen) launders money, they make money on it. They just can't go encouraging it's use or not taking reasonable steps to ensure that it occurs.
Unless there's some "interest paid to the state" rule in money laundering law that I am unaware of.
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.
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.
no, no, no!
Here's the problem. The Supremes didn't say "Grokster's advertising practice promotes the act of copyright infringement and any and all promotional materials and advertisements that do so are illegal." they said "making a piece of software that's marketed as a vehicle for copyright infringement is illegal."
The reason that's important is that a legal interpretation of some borderline ad-campaign could make X-brand software illegal (instead of making the company change the advertisement, pay a fine, etc).
The software and the advertisement are not the problem, the infringement is (although, seperately, the promotion itself is possibly illegal).
This ruling's reasoning is not far from "My kid played GTA and shot a cop, it's partly the game publisher's fault." No, it's not. It's the (hypothetical) kid's fault...you know, the one who actually did something wrong? I don't know what they're smoking in the court these days, but it must be good.
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
How about this? In the United States, its legal to grow and smoke a plant that is known to cause cancer and kill you, but its illegal to grow and smoke a plant that can be used to relieve the pain from the cancer caused by the legal plant mentioned above.
Its all about big business. Weapons and defense is big business. File sharing apps are not. Tobacco and drug companies are big business.
Someone please mod this up.
I agree wholeheartedly that the point of whether the product is promoted one way or another is irrelevant. What is pertinent is that Grokster itself did not download any copyrighted material or found to be guilty of anything except the tangential copyright infringement of their users.
It shouldn't matter if they told their users to commit copyright infringement using their product. It shouldn't matter that they *encouraged* users to commit copyright infringement using their product. They, in fact, did not commit the crime, the user downloading the copyrighted material did.
Unless, of course, encouraging others to commit a crime is itself a crime. Something, of course, they were not on trial for to begin with, but which also stinks of a worse problem regarding First Amendment rights.
C
The Sun is proof that we can't even do fire properly.
-- bullets whose sole purpose of design is to go through bullet proof vests; obviously a device designed to kill or maim human beings
Currently yes, it is. And the reason is simple... it was recognized by our founders that it is essential to a democracy for the citizenry to be able to, if need be, defend themselves fromt he government.
That means that it is reasonable, as a law abiding citizen, to desire the means to have lethal force available in your defense.
--> Fight tyranny and repression.... read
Unless, of course, encouraging others to commit a crime is itself a crime.
It is a crime -- Solicitation.
Unfortunately, it's not medical marijuana.
Look into the history of cannibus. It was outlawed because of its use in rope-making, not because of the drug use. Why else would ANY form of hemp (even the non-smokable variety) be illegal in the USA. The studies that got written to point out the evils of pot were funded by DuPont right after they created Nylon. They wanted to compete with hemp rope, and used the fact that some (very few, at that time) people smoked one variety of it to get high.
It is all about the money, but not all about "drugs." Hemp could still compete with Nylon rope, cotton cloth, and quite a few other big industries.
If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space.
I've often thought the opposite of this...and hence a main reason pot hasn't been legalized. How would a big company make money and the govt get taxes on a plant, that anyone could grow themselves in their backyard if legalized?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
The ruling had issue with the intent of the developers, not the technology. The development showed an intent to distribute protected media. If Henry Ford first introduced the "car" as a device for running over pedestrians, it wouldn't have been legal either.
This may come to a shock to you, but I don't think that people who make a career of law enforcement are in league with your sister's ex to allow her to be murdered so they can grab a Krispy Kreme. The REAL issue here is that the US is such a litigious society that no matter how well a civil servant performs their duties, someone will look for a payday by filing a law suit. What do they have to loose?
Hey, this might not be great for consumers, but let's be realistic. Why should a company invest in implementing and maintaining any infrastructure when it gives them no competetive advantage? Years ago, banks suied and won a case that allowed them to chanrge a $1.00 - $3.00 service fee for money withdrawn from their ATMs from rival bank card holders. Before that, a Bank may have 1,000 ATMs and had to share access to them, but not the cost of operating them, with their rivals. How is this fair?
So another way to say this is, "Reporters now face possible jail time for protecting sources who are suspected of committing a crime". Hey, this makes sense to me. Since a reporter is neither judge nor jury, why should they be able to decide who is guilty or inocent of wrong doing? That is for our legal system to decide. And since the media wields so much power, (witness Wendy's loosing millions on false claims that someone found a finger in their chili), it makes sense to provide a check and balance to that power.
Um, no. It goes more like this: A municipality (like a city) may force people to sell private property at market rates for both public use (like a highway which has been a law for years) and now also private development (like to build a shopping center or stadium) if it will benefit the public at large by means such as improving the tax base. What this does is allows a city to take a low income urban area filled with rent houses and redevelop it into a new football stadium that will add millions in taxes over the years, without having to pay $250,000 an acer to a slum lord who'se been renting 1 br. appartments for $300 a week.
In closing, you sir, are spinning lies. Way to go!
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.