Hollywood Can Sue For Media Piracy

June 27, 2005 By Ian Bell

The Supreme Court ruled today that that movie and music industries can sue technology companies that 'encourage' illegal file swapping over the internet.

The ruling is expected to have very little impact on consumers and their online habits, but it does hold a devastating punishment for peer-to-peer software companies that could be considered ‘promoters’ of illegal file swapping.

In Monday’s ruling, the court said that Gokster Ltd. and Streamcast Networks Inc., both developers of P2P software, did not try to prohibit the sharing of illegal content and therefore can be sued because they are encouraging its users to swap files that could be considered copyrighted content.

What this could mean for future P2P developers and users is that new safety precautions will need to be put into place to prohibit the sharing of illegal content. It could be argued that the majority of users that use P2P network software do so for illegal reasons, so the outcome of this ruling will have a dramatic impact on revenue that revolves around the P2P industry as a whole.

Showing 3 comments

James at 2:27pm 27th June 2005 But Microsoft doesn't let their users do that. You cannot create a means for illegal activity and then expect their users to use it legally.

I mean common, no locks or preventative measures? Thats just stupid. Thats like Cable TV letting any content be broadcast without regulating it or preventing people from showing X-rated or unappropriate material to your homes TV.

Its common sense. Sure this ruling has impacted all of us, and its sad. I am not happy about it either, but its like the courts had no help by these software companies. If Grokster had said "we have developed a way to help eliminate illegal content by filtering out keywords etc" then I am sure they would have won. But they didn't and now they are being punished - they are idiots.
fungku at 2:23pm 27th June 2005 I dont think p2p companies should be at blame for what users do. Thats like saying Microsoft can be sued because a user can use their software do do illegal things (hacking/cracking/ripping/etc.)
James at 2:20pm 27th June 2005 Who wants to use BitTorrent to download freeware? Very lame. This means the P2P market has probably been cut by 75%. No one will want to develop technology for this if there is no money to be made.

Is downloading copyrighted content illegal? Yes. Should we be surprised by this ruling? No. P2P software developers have handled this the wrong way.

Creating the means for illegal action SHOULD be punishable if they did not try to put some sort of safety mechanism in their software - for that they are being punished. The P2P industry has been very stupid about this, and its a shame because we all get punished as a result.