The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that the software companies behind file trading networks can be held liable for their users' actions when copyright violations occur.
Ruling against Grokster and Streamcast Inc, and also in disagreement with previous rulings by lower courts, the Supreme Court decided that because the software creators did not appear to make any efforts to curb illegal file sharing then they could be held responsible for their users' actions when their software was used for illegal purposes.
Justice David H. Souter wrote the following in the court ruling:
The question is under what circumstances the distributor
of a product capable of both lawful and unlawful use is
liable for acts of copyright infringement by third parties
using the product. 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.
Actions of this type against companies who create products capable of replicating copyrighted material usually revolve around the 1984 ruling in Sony's favour, where it was found that illegal uses of the VCR were not Sony's fault. However, today's ruling found that the previous ruling in Sony's favour was not entirely applicable to this case, as VCR's were mainly used to record something for later viewing, and not as a distribution mechanism.
We're sure that you are going to have opinions about all of this. At the end of the day, downloading and sharing copyrighted material is illegal. However, there are many applications of P2P software which are perfectly legal and valid. The worry is that software companies will be wary of releasing useful tools for fear that they will be sued by major copyright holders.
The trial has now been sent back to the courts, so it can be determined whether or not Grokster actively encouraged their users to share copyrighted files. We'll keep you updated.
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