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So Slashdot had published an article about the Supreme Court returning a verdict on Grokster v.s. RIAA/MPAA/etc. What they said wasn't who was what or whatnot. In this, the devil is in the details (CNN article).
What the Supreme Court said was "If they marketed it as a piracy tool, then they're liable for all the piracy committed with it." They then kicked it to a lower court to find out IF Grokster actually was marketed to be a piracy tool.
If Grokster was marketed to be a piracy tool, and it's proven so, Grokster, and only Grokster, dies. P2P file sharing lives on through other programs like Kazaa, Limewire, gtk-gnutella, and eMule. The RIAA/MPAA now has to spend alot of money to prove the makers of every P2P tool intended to be marketed as piracy tools, including the free ones, and even the small p2p-in-6-lines-Perl MoleSter. Why? The Supreme Court set that nice lovely bar today.
You know... I was contemplating a scenerio IF the Supreme Court did a blanket ban on P2P and file sharing. However, the Supreme Court didn't. It just set a bar for the RIAA/MPAA to jump over, and I like that. Besides, military creation of P2P software will make it blatantly obvious that any use of said software isn't infringing (and if it is, you see the Laerties or the Shotgun in orbit there? They got orbital lances that can slice through major cities, and have enough power to toast your sub in seconds if you were close enough to the beam... )
What the Supreme Court said was "If they marketed it as a piracy tool, then they're liable for all the piracy committed with it." They then kicked it to a lower court to find out IF Grokster actually was marketed to be a piracy tool.
If Grokster was marketed to be a piracy tool, and it's proven so, Grokster, and only Grokster, dies. P2P file sharing lives on through other programs like Kazaa, Limewire, gtk-gnutella, and eMule. The RIAA/MPAA now has to spend alot of money to prove the makers of every P2P tool intended to be marketed as piracy tools, including the free ones, and even the small p2p-in-6-lines-Perl MoleSter. Why? The Supreme Court set that nice lovely bar today.
You know... I was contemplating a scenerio IF the Supreme Court did a blanket ban on P2P and file sharing. However, the Supreme Court didn't. It just set a bar for the RIAA/MPAA to jump over, and I like that. Besides, military creation of P2P software will make it blatantly obvious that any use of said software isn't infringing (and if it is, you see the Laerties or the Shotgun in orbit there? They got orbital lances that can slice through major cities, and have enough power to toast your sub in seconds if you were close enough to the beam... )
