This has been UPDATED

Read an article here: Hollywood wins Internet piracy battle
A pre-decision article here: Justices to Weigh Key Copyright Case

I had been watching this case, and I’m very VERY upset about the results:

“The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that companies that sell file-sharing software can be held liable for copyright infringement. “

I acknowledge the fact that this ‘file-sharing’ thing has been something of a threat to the entertainment industry, but not in the way that they imagine it to be. The courts should realize that the industry is extremely paranoid, and HAS been for decades.

The law dot com article is very informative about the state of things with this case:

From Law dot com
Twenty-one years ago, the high court, in a closely decided ruling, held that the maker, distributor and sellers of the Betamax videocassette recorder were not liable if users infringed copyrights on television broadcasts. Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, 464 U.S. 417 (1984).
[Emphasis Added]

This current case (MGM Studios v. Grokster, No. 04-480) came to the Supreme Court, after MGM appealed the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling in favor of Grokster. Needless to say, there was much back-and-forth about the decision:

From Law dot com
“What’s notable to many of us about the Grokster case is the 9th Circuit just interprets and applies the Sony standard in such a fashion as to virtually immunize massive day-in and day-out regular infringement from any meaningful limitation, particularly the companies and persons who are essentially responsible for it,” said Jon A. Baumgarten of Proskauer Rose, who filed an amicus brief supporting MGM Studios on behalf of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences and others.

The 9th Circuit interpreted Sony correctly, countered Cindy A. Cohn of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, counsel of record to Grokster and StreamCast in the high court.

“As I look at history, [the entertainment industry] has always wanted to control distribution of their work,” she said. “They’ve sued every new technology that’s come along. They sued Sony over the VCR. They want a paradigm shift where copyright law suddenly means all those technologists have to come to Hollywood first and get some kind of dispensation before they create new products. That would be a bad result for consumers, for sure, and for the economy as well.”

If the entertainment industry had won back in the ’80s when they sued Sony over the Betamax, things would be far different today. For one thing, they would have lost out on the hundreds of thousands of dollars they made off videos. There’s always a way to take new technology and make a buck off it. They are so concerned about piracy that they aren’t thinking innovatively.

Look at what Apple did ([shudder] I can’t believe I’m using them as a positive example). They turned the whole music issue into a profit. Seeing that people would rather download music than rush off to the store, or wait for a CD to arrive in the mail, they created the iTunes Music Store, where people can download songs for $0.99 each! They’re making a killing! And many other companies are following suit, including Microsoft!

Peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing programs are not created with the intent to break the law, just as guns are not manufactured with the intent for criminal to use in crimes. Holding the companies that create such products responsible is just as counter-intuitive as trying to hold the gun makers responsible for gun-related criminal activities.

Rather than try to squish innovation, the entertainment industry should work on two things: 1) Figure out how to make the current situation profitable (like Apple did with the iTunes Music Store), and 2) Work to create a BETTER PRODUCT! There are some movies that have a special ‘you have to see it in the theatre’ feeling. Far too many movies being churned out of Hollywood these days just don’t have that feeling. If there was a return to better movie making, rather than spitting out formulaic trite, people would be more apt to enjoying the movie experience again.

I wish I could find the reference, but there was something on the news recently that talked about how more and more people are skipping the movies and simply waiting for things to be released on video. In some respects, file sharing is a scapegoat for a larger problem. The industry is producing crap, and the consumers know it. Rather than spend $50+ to take their family out to the movies and be disappointed, they wait for the $19.95 DVD, invite their friends over, and everyone can enjoy the movie without being pissed off about spending too much money for the same Hollywood movie with a just a different title.

In addition, it is interesting to note that the Supreme Court didn’t actually RULE on this case (dispite the title of the article). They sent the case back down to the 9th Circuit Court to be retried by them.

Despite Monday’s decision, the battle over file-sharing is far from over. The Supreme Court order sends the Grokster case back for retrial to the same lower court that had ruled for Grokster and StreamCast Networks.

What is that? “We’re not actually going to make a ruling on this, but we think you should look over it again… and we ALL think you’re wrong.”

No pressure.

I hope that the 9th Circuit Court rules the same way again. They were right. The innovators should not be held liable for the misapplication of their products. But that’s just my opinion.
.. and the opion of others:

“This is a very dangerous decision for technology and for innovation,” said Edward Black, the president of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, which opposed the entertainment industry in the lawsuit.

UPDATE: 6/28/2005

Law dot com has posted an article about the case. You can read it here: Supreme Court Rules Against Grokster
Something to note about the whole thing though: the whole “rules against grokster” thing is a bit misleading. What they have done is simpy stated that there is enough evidence to bring the case to court. They have sent it back to the 9th District Court to be tried. It seems that the 9th Distrect Court never actually tried the case, they simply said that there was no case to begin with, under the ‘Sony Rule’.

This wasn’t nessisarily a ‘win’ for MGM, just a move in their favor. If the case has to actually be tried, then there is a chance they could win. MGM’s point (which I will agree, is a valid one) was that Grokster (and the others named in the case) arn’t protected by the ‘Sony Rule’ becuase they created and marketed their file sharing programs with the specific intent of violating copywrites (that’s MGM’s accusation). They apparently had enough compelling evidence to support that claim to convince the Supreme Court that the case should be brought to trial.

Interesting to note, is Justice Breyer interpretation of the situation:

“… if about 10 percent of a product’s usage doesn’t involve copyright infringement and there are ways to increase that non-infringement usage — including swapping of news broadcasts, digital educational materials, public domain films, and the like — then the product’s makers should be protected from liability under the Sony rule.”

I believe that interpretation would be very upsetting to the MGM camp. So let’s go with that

Roy has writen about this on his blog as well. Check it out.