Oerdin's torch carries on - SCOTUS permits lawsuits against file-sharing

[Imran Siddiqui]

As I read this, it seems to me that as long as file-sharing services plaster themselves with all sorts of warnings about how naughty copyright infringement is, and how sad it would make them if their users indulged, they would effectively innoculate themselves. Is that so?

Basically. They can't say download our program and get free music. It's very hard for the recording industry to prove these programs are liable.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
I do think technology will eventually break the current system and hand it back over to the people.

When that happens, is anyone's guess.

When that happens, I'll hand you a beer and we can roast marshmallows on burning Republicans as the flames flicker against the Lincoln Memorial.

[Ted Striker]

[Urban Ranger]

The entertainment industry said it needed protection against the billions of dollars in revenue they lose to illegal swapping.

Haven't they got bored with this yet? Nobody else is buying this bunk.

Even The Economist took issue with this assertion.

[Mr. Harley]

I'll still repeat my point Imran - that the recording industry will use the threat of lawsuits to shut down new technology companies that cannot afford the cost. After all, the legal system is so expensive, and who want that? Oops, Imran's might.

[Sikander]

Yes, the hidden costs and litigation will hurt tech companies in the U.S., but not elsewhere.

[Mr. Harley]

Actually in the US and the EU. Which will leave India, China, and Dubai as well as a bunch of South American countries to develop the technology. Let's destroy our global lead in the two industries we lead in - Information technology and Medicine (see Stem Cell debate).

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

Btw, you are reading the Breyer opinion 100% incorrectly. His concurrance is disagreeing with GINSBURG's concurrence, which wants to toughen the Sony standard. Breyer agrees fully with Souter, and is warning against Ginsburg's decision, which Kennedy and Rehnquist joined, in which they want the defendant to prove in greater detail.

I understand that Breyer and the other two were supporting the current sony standard while Ginzberg was essentially shooting it down. What is not clear to me, given that opinion, is why those 3 chose to find against Grokster. Breyers argument makes it clear (to me at least) that the basis for the ruling for sony (i.e. not infringing) applied to Grokster equally well. They must have split some (very fine) hairs.

On the other hand, one may argue that if Grokster was infringing then sony was too. The lower courts were using the sony standard in their determination that Grokster was not infringing. This decision has muddied the waters around the sony standard and as such may be a huge problem.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


Haven't they got bored with this yet? Nobody else is buying this bunk.

Even The Economist took issue with this assertion.

Well there's no proof that the recording industry has lost revenue because of file sharing. The fact is that there is a lot of crap music produced these days that isn't worth what they charge.

[Tattila the Hun]

Originally posted by Moral Hazard

Oh and didn't 4 or 5 of these justices sit for the VCR case.

I think few of them ruled on phonograph vs gramophones...