Piracy court case

Date: July 04, 2005
Source: Computer Crime Research Center
By: complied by CCRC staff

In a major blow to technological innovation today, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favour of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in a huge P2P case. Since the case began in March, Justices showed concerns over holding the inventors liable for copyright infringement as they believed it could discourage new inventions, but obviously their minds were changed as the ruling was passed unanimously today. However, it't not all the entertainment industry hoped for and Grokster and Morpheus remain complete legal software.

The entertainment companies accused Grokster and StreamCast Networks (which owns the Morpheus P2P software) of promoting their products to be used for piracy and it seems it was enough to convince the court to partially set-aside an older appeals court ruling in favour of Grokster and StreamCast. "We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties." Justice David Souter wrote for the court.

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