June 27, 2005

US rules file-sharing illegal

by brian_turner

The US Supreme Court has ruled that file-sharing companies, such as Grokster and Morpheus, .

It had been thought that the Supreme Court would rule in favour of file-sharers because of legal precedents set when video recorders first appeared.

The legal case against Streamcast Networks, which manufactures the software behind Grokster and Morpheus, began in October 2001. It was brought by 28 film studios and recording companies who claimed that Streamcast was benefiting from Internet piracy, which was taking place on the file-sharing networks.

The case was defeated in successive courts, when judges cited a Supreme Court ruling, made in 1984 over Sony’s Betamax video recorder, that the majority of people using a video recorder for legal uses outweighed any illegal use of the technology.

However, the latest ruling sets aside this precedent and the lower court decisions.

In the ruling Justice David Souter wrote: “We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright … is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties.”

Dan Glickman, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, welcomed the ruling as a victory for intellectual property in the digital age. He said it would benefit consumers, artists, innovation and lawful Internet businesses.

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