Grokster and StreamCast lose
Yes, it’s true. Read that again: Grokster and StreamCast lose. Tune in to SCOTUSblog and Picker MobBlog for more details.
I’m pretty sure this decision will inform influence the outcome of the still ongoing Winny case.
Update: Lawrence Solum analyzes what the court says about Sony: in short, “they leave Sony as it was.”
Update 2: some more interesting bits.
Eric Goldman says: “[w]ith the exception of Grokster and StreamCast as corporate entities (and their employees), I think this case will affect almost no one’s behavior.” And also: “the opinion is relatively narrow and does not put technology providers automatically on the hook for how their technology is used.”
Doug Lightman on the other hand is less optimistic about the Court’s “inducement” or “intent” talk (which allowed it to rule against Grokster/StreamCast, while leaving Sony intact) and points out it will create uncertainty: “[...] legitimate firms are in trouble because honest advertising can easily be construed as inducement.”
The “inducement” bit in the Court’s ruling also has another (rather positive) side: Eric Goldman explains:
Congress will not attempt to disturb this ruling. I think the Supreme Court successfully struck a middle ground that will keep Congress from getting involved. The copyright owners won the case, so Congress won’t be that sympathetic to their requests. Further, the copyright owners got a Supreme Court pronouncement on “inducement,” so that will substantially relax any pressure they could put on Congress to give them an inducement doctrine.”
Update 3: Ed Felten is not so enthusiast about the Court’s design second-guessing:
Legitimate technologists will still worry that a well-funded plaintiff can cook up a stew of product design second-guessing, business model second-guessing, and occasional failures of copyright compliance by low-level employees, into an active inducement case. This risk existed before, and the Court today hasn’t done much to reduce it.
Update 4: for those who want a good overview of the ruling (and its possible effects), read Siva Vaidhyanathan’s excellent Salon.com article. Also worth a look: “BitTorrent: The Next Main Event” by Ed Felten.
After reading the opinion, I didn’t see much for the content industry to be happy about. Still, lawyers, lobbyists, and easily-swayed mouthpieces pronounced victory. See that Monday’s Daily Variety: “Grokster Tuned Out: High court puts the unanimous kibosh on file sharing.” uh, wrong.
The lawyers who worked on the case had to be thrilled though, because defeat would have been embarrassing and because they would have played little part in the industry’s next move: new legislation. But the lawyers and lobbyists look like the only winners here.
» Alx on July 8th, 2005 at 16:37