Share and Share Alike

Of interest: the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals apparently ruled today in the Grokster case (MGM v. Grokster, where the big media copyright holders sued the creators of a p2p filesharing application for copyright violation). The appeals court held that filesharing applications such as Grokster, Morpheus and Gnutella, like Betamaxes and VCRs two decades before them, are not inherently infringing devices, and therefore cannot be held liable for their use by actual infringers.

I haven’t read the decision yet, only the excerpts, but it looks like there’s some choice language therein:

The introduction of new technology is always disruptive to old markets, and particularly to those copyright owners whose works are sold through well established distribution mechanisms. Yet, history has shown that time and market forces often provide equilibrium in balancing interests, whether the new technology be a player piano, a copier, a tape recorder, a video recorder, a personal computer, a karaoke machine, or an MP3 player.Thus, it is prudent for courts to exercise caution before restructuring liability theories for the purpose of addressing specific market abuses, despite their apparent present magnitude.

The court also goes out of its way to make sure everyone knows that Congress is in control of the limitations of copyright and the definition of infringement, which I’m sure that Big Media will take as its cue to ramp up the march to a vote on the INDUCE Act, but still: a nice (and sensible) decision by the Ninth Circuit.