In papers to be filed today, an artist's group is backing file sharing service Grokster against the entertainment industry in a critical copyright case before the Supreme Court, scheduled to begin March 29.
Background
On December 10, 2004 the Supreme Court agreed to hear the entertainment industry's case against two file-sharing services, Grokster Ltd. and StreamCast Networks Inc (Morpheus), through which millions of people swap music and movies online, a decision that could decide the future of digital copyright rules and related technology for years to come.
The entertainment industry says more than 2.6 billion copyrighted music files and 15 million movie files are traded each month, which they claim imperils the entire recorded entertainment industry.
Grokster and StreamCast cite the 1984 Betamax decision, in which the Supreme Court refused to make Sony liable for alleged illegal recording of movies and TV shows by its customers as long as its video recorders also could be used for legal purposes such as recording a show for later viewing, or "time-shifting." Grokster also argues that file sharing services are used for distributing works legally, either with permission of the artist or because copyrights have expired or never obtained.
In their appeal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco, the industry lawyer himself said that 10% of the files are legit. Isn't 10% — which is surely understated if it came from the industry lawyer — sufficient to establish "substantial legitimate use"? The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit thought so, ruling in favor of Grokster. What's changed in the interim? Nothing.
Artists Break With Industry
The artist group, which includes Steve Winwood, Chuck D, and Heart, said that it condemns the stealing of copyrighted works, but says file sharing services such as Grokster and Kazaa provide a legal and important alternative for artists to distribute their material outside of the label system:
- "Musicians are not universally united in opposition to peer-to-peer file sharing" as the major records companies claim, according to a draft of the group's court filing. "To the contrary, many musicians find peer-to-peer technology . . . allows them easily to reach a worldwide online audience. And to many musicians, the benefits of this . . . strongly outweigh the risks of copyright infringement."
Article comments
1 - Aaman
Has even one of these copyright violation cases gone to trial? The EFF would have been pretty active if it had.
Computer scientists have also filed a brief defending the P2P makers.
2 - Eric Olsen
to my knowledge none have gone to trial and reached a verdict: most of the people sued have settled
3 - Rafael Venegas
If 10 and not 75 percent of p2p is legal copying it is because the copyright cartels and record monopolies have made sure that great music in public domain or abandoned is no longer recorded because the great public domain music produces no royalties. As a result great music is no longer heard and we have a culturally poor world community and much of the music heard on radio and at the record shop today is crap. Thanks to the copyright cartel and record monopolies for that.
4 - Eric Olsen
I'm not sure about your percentages, but I agree with you basic premise Rafael - copyright has grown far too restrictive and tilted in favor of copyright owners at the expense of the greater culture
5 - Mark Saleski
it's amazing the lengths that labels/copyright owners will go to 'protect' their 'property'.
a couple of years ago, there was a website that specialized in digitizing out of print easy listening/lounge/exotica records.
they were shut down via the ever popular cease & desist order....and of course the label(s) had no interesting in reissueing the material.
6 - Eric Olsen
yes Mark, that's exactly where "owner's rights" have gone too far: there should be a requirement that the material be available or they lose the copyright. Just sitting on material that is part of the culture is a big part of the problem. File-sharing didn't explode just because people are cheap and devious, but because it was a way to get things not otherwise available, including at the time, individual songs off of albums. That part has been addressed by the legitimate services, but a dollar a song is still about ten-times too high a price
7 - Mark Saleski
and the labels are thinking about raising the price of downloaded music.
apparently, the stupidity is endless.
8 - Eric Olsen
it's very short-sighted and pretty typical
9 - Eric Olsen
Intel has joined the tech firms supporting Grokster
10 - Thad Anderson
This is a torrent of all of the briefs submitted re: MGM v. Grokster, in the zip format provided on the U.S. Copyright Office site.
Torrent Link: http://24.90.150.65:6969/torrents/MGM_v_Grokster_briefs.torrent?A7069F2F6D00A81638E0005E370ECB512383F5E3
Size: 20.7 MB
Files: 74 files
Source: U.S. Copyright Office, MGM v. Grokster Page (http://www.copyright.gov/docs/mgm/)
11 - Hotel Owner
Oh common very little thing is now being pirated sure this peeps and i know they soon have their own Karma to settle with.