Time is up warez kiddies and P2P peddlers

D

Darth Garth

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In a 9-to-0 body slam, the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that Grokster et al can be held liable for the use of their software and networks.

"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, going beyond mere distribution with knowledge of third-party action, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties using the device, regardless of the device's lawful uses."

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050627-5042.html
 
Using that logic, I'd hate to be a gun manufacturer.
 
That logic could be applied to almost anything - say now an ISP is declared liable for damage done by terrorists as they mailed each other using their mail server???

A silly judgment.
 
whats up with the supreme court in the US? its been judging wierdly on a lot of cases
 
MaD said:
A silly judgment.
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It only applies to copyright infringement and not to guns or hosting beheading video's on Al-Queda on your ISP.

I would hate to be the author of a popular P2P program right now.
 
"One who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright"
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Reading it again it actually sounds like they're saying it's ok to market guns (for example) as a self-defense weapon, not as a leet way to kill people.

In that case this doesn't mean much, the PR people just have to watch their words.
 
w1z4rd said:
whats up with the supreme court in the US? its been judging wierdly on a lot of cases
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What is really significant is that none of the judges dissented in this case ... normally one or two would go against the majority.
 
btw i know it doesn't apply to guns, i was just making an analogy.
 
dabean said:
In that case this doesn't mean much, the PR people just have to watch their words.
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It won't really help them ... exactly how many Linux distro's can you download via P2P ???.

If Hollywood can prove that a certain P2P networks is mostly used for warez then they can sue the authors/owners of said P2P networks unless the P2P network has facilities to take down copyrighted files.

This situation is given really ... it took them a while to wake up ... but they who have the $$$ have the power.
 
w1z4rd said:
whats up with the supreme court in the US? its been judging wierdly on a lot of cases
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Rhenquist has resigned, and the Supreme court is about to adjourn for the US summer, so there is a huge amount of politicing going on...
 
I honestly don't think this'll change much. P2P networks will keep popping up. For every one they take down, two takes its place. Besides, so you shut down individual developers, or companies that develop P2P software, all that will happen is that more open-source community based projects will start.

The judgement is stupid in my opinion, but it won't do anything to stop file trading, just like shutting down Bittorrent sites doesn't stop people from downloading pirated stuff via torrent or suing individuals that download MP3's doesn't stop people from downloading MP3's.

If they actually enforce this law at all it'll lead to a giant boom in P2P networks.
 
You know all this talk about loosing revenue as though consumers have nothing else to do with their income but buy CD's; I think they conviniently forget that they have to COMPETE. Music alone is not the only option for entertainment; we have PS2's, Xbox's, PC's, cell phones, digital camera's and Teaser's for crying out loud.

They need to be competitive, they need to offer value, their whole business model needs a revision. Antagonising your consumers wont help u much.
 
TMoose said:
Besides, so you shut down individual developers, or companies that develop P2P software, all that will happen is that more open-source community based projects will start.
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Besides shutting you down they sue your a$$ of or keep you in courts for years on end if required.

How many people are willing to loose everything for the sake of the "community" or "freedom" ???.

Also look at how quickly the owner/operators of LokiTorrent settled and handed over all the logs and accounts when the MPAA paid him them a visit.
 
Mebbe ya'll should faceit. The only way you're going to find a good song out of the 10 000 000 produced every month is to - um - um - smell ?

Ludicrous. The power of big companies to twist reality is upsurd !
 
tibby.dude said:
Besides shutting you down they sue your a$$ of or keep you in courts for years on end if required.

How many people are willing to loose everything for the sake of the "community" or "freedom" ???
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Exactly the same amount that are not afraid of getting sued for downloading music. Millions. You can catch one here and there, but you can never catch them all. No matter what you do online, your chances are still very small of getting caught.

The birth cry of the entire Internet, every hacker and computer geek has always been "Information wants to be free". Sorry, but they'll never be able to stop it, not unless you have a very good chance of getting caught. You'd need a totally global copyright police force that can strike with pin-point accuracy in any country on Earth, irrespective of copyright laws etc in that country. Not gonna happen.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and let me just add that the entire trend in P2P software is decentralisation anyway. Soon you won't be able to shut down servers and make the bad network go away since the network will only exist virtually on thousands of machines across the world. Several P2P networks already work like this, and even the new Bittorrent no longer relies on Tracker servers.
 
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Oh, woe is everybody. Did you hear? They shut down napster because the bad men used it to copy music illegally! Luckily there wont ever be any other form of P2P software out there, because they shut down NAPSTER! No way would anybody start something like KaZaA or even worse things!

Now we will have to limit ourselves to pirating at LANs
 
And what about limited liability. Let's say dummy company X runs a p2p network that gets busted. Who gets sued? The company, not the management. We all know how the law strictly upholds that separation in the US.

So if the network gets sued, so what. The company didn't have any assets anyway, pleads bankruptcy, gets dissolved, and the next week a new company Y exists.
 
I can't believe it passed 9-0, brown paper bags anyone?
Its a crap ruling. lol, soon ftp might be illegal, will they sue ftp creators?
 
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