Marco

The U.S. Supreme Court decided the MGM vs. Grokster case today in favor of MGM. So what does this mean?

My first thought was that this is A Very Bad Thing. This case has been in the works for quite some time now, and I've always sided with the geeks against the content cartel. But it's interesting to take a look at the actual court opinion. I read most of it, and I was both surprised by some of the facts I learned and hit by how reasonable the opinion is. (I haven't yet read the concurring opinions of Ginsburg or Breyer.)

The main argument in favor of Grokster that has stuck in my mind the last few months is that the 1984 Sony Betamax case should apply here because the tool (software in this case, hardware in the Betamax case) has "substantial non-infringing uses" and the company that merely makes the tool can't be held liable for the uses it is put to by the various and sundry characters who use it.

The problem is that the Betamax case isn't really relevant here. There are some nit-picking legal reasons why not that are described in the opinion, but the one that stands out for me is the following: it's clear that Grokster and StreamCast (which distributes Morpheus) are NOT merely the makers of an impartial tool that could be used for evil, but rather they actively promoted, encouraged, and sought the illegal distribution of copyrighted works using their software. They actively courted former Napster users, promising them both implicitly and rather explicitly that the copyrighted works they found on Napster would abound on Grokster/Morpheus. They responded to emails from users asking how to acquire and play copyrighted material, helping those users in quite direct ways. And they also had plenty of internal communication that shows they saw distribution of copyrighted materials as the core use of their software. StreamCast's CTO even said at one point "[t]he goal is to get in trouble with the law and get sued. It's the best way to get in the new[s]."

If you're wondering about this case and its result, I encourage you to read the opinion. It was enlightening for me--I realized this wasn't just a case about openness and technology vs. stifling innovation. If you think that mass distribution of copyrighted songs/movies isn't or shouldn't be illegal, that's one thing, but short of that it seems to me that the Supreme Court hit the nail on the head when it said that Grokster and Streamcast are in the wrong.

What we need now is for a truly impartial filesharing system to become popular and have more substantial actual non-infringing use...