The Grokster Ruling: Life, Death and the Bay City Rollers
The US Supreme Court’s ruling against Grokster came in today:
"We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties"
So, to quote a Slashdot poster on the subject this afternoon:
In the United States, it's legal to sell armour-piercing ammunition: bullets whose sole purpose is to go through bulletproof vests; obviously a device designed to kill or maim human beings. The manufacturers to do not even make the pretense of proposing other uses for said ammunition. This activity is all fine and legal. By comparison, a device that may or may not be designed for, but is certainly capable of, infringing copyright is deemed illegal. The manufacturers at least attempt the pretense of proposing legal uses for the technology and make a somewhat-better-than-marginal case for its legit use. This is not fine or legal. Question for the supreme court: do you really believe the copyright of the Bay City Rollers first album is more deserving of legal protection than a human life?
And to quote the Register
‘the professional pundits and their pyjama-clad reflections in the “blogosphere” had been anxiously waiting for the Supremes’ verdict for a week… And off they went, like lab monkeys on meths sniffing fresh air for the first time’