The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday unanimously ruled that Internet file-sharing services may be sued by movie studios, a decision that could effectively shut down services widely used to view movies without paying and to watch TV shows stripped of advertising. The case, MGM Studios v Grokster, was among the most closely watched technology cases since 1984, when the high court established the legality of the video-cassette recorder. On Monday, the justices decided services such as Grokster may be sued if the services encourage illegal file-swapping. The opinion sent the case back to lower courts, which are to decide whether Grokster encouraged online theft of copyrighted material. The verdict amounted to a victory for movie studios, TV networks and other content companies that feared their movies, sitcoms, dramas and other products would be distributed without effective control to whoever has a computer and access to a high-speed line. Dan Glickman, president and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America, called the ruling “an historic victory for intellectual property in the digital age.” “The Supreme Court sent a strong and clear message that businesses based on theft should not and will not be allowed to flourish,” Glickman said. The core issue before the justices was whether technology is legal even if it can be used for illegal purposes, such as copying movies for redistribution without a license. In the Grokster case, studios’ attorneys argued the service was little more than a vast copyright-infringement machine, with thousands of people downloading movies and TV shows from the Web. Backers said Grokster and similar services were legal since file-sharing has many legitimate uses, for instance by researchers and business people swapping files. At the same time, they conceded that Grokster users commit widespread copyright infringement. Following Monday’s ruling, Michael Page, an attorney for Grokster, said the service does not encourage illegal file-sharing. Whether courts accept Page’s contention could be key to further litigation, observers suggested. “We’ll see when it goes back to lower courts whether there is enough evidence here to prove copyright infringement,” said Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, an advocacy group that backed Grokster in its legal struggle. In another closely-watched media case, the justices on a 6-to-3 vote decided cable operators need not grant competing independent Internet-service providers access to the high-speed cable modems many consumers use to access the Internet. Cable companies argued their privately built systems should not be regulated. The Internet service providers said access needs to be widely available for the Web to remain an open, vibrant medium. Source: MediaWeek
does this mean no more music sharing? cause that contributes to file sharing in general, nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, just when i thought i had the answer to legal, free music
