March 29th, 2005: The legalities of File Sharing are brought to the US Supreme Court. If the court finds in favor of MGM, everything from Kazaa to your VCR could, technically, be held illegal. But let’s hope that it won’t come to that.
The Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Sony Corporation of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. (a.k.a. the “Sony Betamax ruling”) held that a distributor cannot be held liable for users’ infringement so long as the tool is capable of substantial noninfringing uses. In MGM v. Grokster, the Ninth Circuit found that P2P file-sharing software is capable of, and is in fact being used for, noninfringing uses. Relying on the Betamax precedent, the court ruled that the distributors of Grokster and Morpheus software cannot be held liable for users’ copyright violations. The plaintiffs appealed, and in December 2004 the Supreme Court granted certiorari.
“The copyright law principles set out in the Sony Betamax case have served innovators, copyright industries, and the public well for 20 years,” said Fred von Lohmann, EFF’s senior intellectual property attorney. “We at EFF look forward to the Supreme Court reaffirming the applicability of Betamax in the 21st century.”
Stay tuned.
UPDATE - More linkifications:
Downhill Battle
P2P Under Fire in CA
Amicus Brief arguing that P2P should be legal.
European Union argues that music piracy should be outlawed, but that home downloaders should be allowed to continue unpunished.
French Appeals Court rules in favor of guy who downloaded 500+ movies for personal use.
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