Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg gave voice to a concern that seemed to be troubling a number of her colleagues, too — the proper legal standard for judging secondary infringement in the digital age. She and others several times asked the attorneys to spell out their interpretation of the Sony Betamax standard, and to articulate why they thought it might not be adequate. (The Sony standard has usually been understood as barring secondary copyright infringement if the developer has created a product that has the capacity for “substantial non-infringing uses” that were “commercially significant”.)…
The Court is expected to decide the case later this spring.
UPDATE:
Justice Stephen G. Breyer said the same software that can be used to steal copyrighted materials offered at least conceptually “some really excellent uses” that are legal. Justice Antonin Scalia maintained that a ruling for entertainment companies could mean that if “I’m a new inventor, I’m going to get sued right away.”
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