Supreme Court justices question P-to-P lawsuits

#1 MW Forums

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Posted 29 March 2005 - 01:40 PM

Technology companies may shy away from inventing new products that could be used to violate copyright laws if the U.S. entertainment industry can sue the distributors of the Grokster and Morpheus P-to-P (peer-to-peer) software packages for their users' actions, some U.S. Supreme Court justices argued Tuesday. more

#2 aestival

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Posted 29 March 2005 - 02:13 PM

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Using the same logic, the entertainment industry could argue that Apple's iPod also encourages copyright violations, added Justice David Souter. "If I can get music to the iPod without buying the CD, I'm not going to buy the CD," he said.

Nice to know that American judges adhere to such a strict code of ethics... the point is that most people (other than Supreme Court judges, apparently) do not spend their lives going out of their way to be unethical. iTMS is better than file sharing chiefly because, like walking into a store, you have no real choice other than buying the music. Once someone wades into the fountain to pick up a coin, they're unlikely to stop at just one -- but most of us have the sense not to wade in when there's an alternative.

#3 tomottoe

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Posted 29 March 2005 - 02:36 PM

Well, I think Justice Souter was using "I" in that statement from the point of view of the entertainment industry's argument in the case--i.e., the entertainment industry takes it for granted that everyone is going to attempt to use technology illegally. And Justice Souter was rightfully questioning that point of view.

#4 mac_the_knife

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Posted 29 March 2005 - 03:23 PM

I was planning on trying to see the oral arguments in person. However, yesterday I walked by the Supreme Court on the way back from work and saw people already camped out. I decided that I couldn't compete with these freaks and didn't try to get any of the argument. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif
Anyways... does anyone know of a link to the transcript of the oral arguments? EFF usually does a good job of this, they don't have it on their site as of now...

#5 Nobody

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Posted 30 March 2005 - 06:30 AM

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The Supreme Court's 1984 Sony Betamax ruling exempts makers of technology from secondary copyright liability lawsuits when their technology has "substantial noninfringing uses," but Grokster supporters can point to just a few hundred thousand legal files among the 2.6 billion traded with P-to-P software each month, he said.

Hundreds of thousands of legal, non-infringing files? That sure sounds like substantial non-infringing use to me. How many files do you need to have a legitimate use, anyway? Millions? Give me a break. Surely, if the legal filesharing is useful to more than a few people, then that is a substantial non-infringing use. Heck, even if I only need one legal file - that file is substantial to me. Who is going to tell me that my personal needs are not substantial?
I'll give you substance.

#6 minderbinder

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Posted 30 March 2005 - 09:34 AM

"Hundreds of thousands of legal, non-infringing files? That sure sounds like substantial non-infringing use to me. How many files do you need to have a legitimate use, anyway? Millions?"
How many do you need? I don't know, but I can certainly see the argument that less than a thousandth of one percent isn't substantial.