No Next Item No Next Conference Can't Favor Can't Forget Item List Conference Home Entrance    Help
Previous 18 Responses. View Responses


Grex Music3 Item 188: The Twentieth "Napsterization" Item
Entered by krj on Thu Mar 24 01:35:29 UTC 2005:

1 new of 80 responses total.



#18 of 80 by krj on Fri Apr 1 18:48:49 2005:

Here's the best combination of information and entertainment I have 
found on the arguments before the Supreme Court in the Grokster case.
 
http://www.wetmachine.com/index.php/item/255
 
Some quick comments:

1)  Not from this article, but from another source, one of the Justices
    (Scalia, I think) said this case would not be decided on the basis
    of "stare decisis," which more-or-less translates as "we're going 
    to follow precedent."   So the Betamax precedent is open for 
    tweaking.

2)  Questions from the Justices indicated that they were very sensitive
    to the issue of allowing new technologies to be choked off by lawsuits
    from the content industries.   To paraphrase the EFF, at least the 
    Justices were asking the right questions.

3)  The Justices don't like the point that Grokster "was making money from 
    wholesale violation of the copyright laws."  (But the VCR business 
    was similarly built!!)  Plaintiff MGM wants to get towards some sort
    of a standard where the business model of a company is examined in 
    determining the company's liability for contributing to infringement:
    but all that's going to do is make sure that the next iteration of 
    file sharing does not involve a business.
    


Next 40 Responses.
Last 40 Responses and Response Form.
No Next Item No Next Conference Can't Favor Can't Forget Item List Conference Home Entrance    Help

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss