Grokster roundups
Grok Headline matches for Grokster roundups
Fox is advertising on Grokster, also
suing to put Grokster out of business
Fox is advertising on Grokster, also
suing to put Grokster out of business
03/25/2005 06:37 PMCory Doctorow:
Grokster goes to the Supreme Court next week, where the MPAA studios
are suing the P2P company over producing a tool that can be used to
infringe copyright, and nevermind that it has lots of non-infringing
uses too. Ironically, Fox, a leading MPAA member, is actually
advertising its movies on Grokster:
TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX FILM CORP., currently suing Grokster and
Morpheus for alleged copyright violations enabled by their
peer-to-peer technology, apparently advertises through software
bundled with Grokster, according to adware researcher Eric Howes.
Howes reported Thursday afternoon that he was served a full-screen
trailer for the DVD of the 20th Century Fox movie "Fat Albert," after
downloading all of the software bundled with Grokster--eight separate
adware programs.
Link
(
Thanks, Molly!)
Roundup of roundups
Roundup of roundups
11/12/2003 01:03 PMThere's blogging a list of links, and then there's blogging a list
of lists of links:
Now if someone else links to this we'll have a link to a list of
lists of links. And that would be just silly.
"MGM v. Grokster - The Law and IT"
"MGM v. Grokster - The Law and IT"
04/03/2005 10:12 PMMGM v. Grokster
MGM v. Grokster
03/29/2005 02:08 PMTechNews.com's Grokster Case At a Glance: Big
Supreme Court case today — MGM v. Grokster. This is considered
by many to be the showdown in the file sharing and P2P
frontier. The ruling here will have huge reverberations on both the
entertainment and Internet industries.
This article has a good wrap-up.
So far, lower courts have ruled that the defendants in the case
— Grokster and StreamCast Networks — can't be held
responsible for what users do with their software, even if that
includes illegally downloading copyrighted songs, films and software
products.
For their sake, I hope Big Media has got a better attorney than the
last time they lost. I heard an MP3 of the arguments (available
at the link), and their guy was just destroyed by the other side (I
think it was a EFF or someone that was fronting the counsel). The
media attorney seemed like a total amateur.
"MGM et. al. v. Grokster"
"MGM et. al. v. Grokster"
08/19/2004 09:00 PMBig Win for Grokster
Big Win for Grokster
08/20/2004 04:22 AMUS Court of Appeals .. opinion .. ruling ..
ruled
ca9.uscourts.gov/ca9/newopinions.nsf/E9CE41F2E90CC8D788256EF40
0822372/$file/0355894.pdf?openelement
track this
site | 5 links
bl0gging mgm vs. grokster
bl0gging mgm vs. grokster
03/28/2005 11:36 PM
Blogging
it Live from outside SCOTUS and
MGM vs. Grokster,
it's NickD.
Grokster and the Future of the Net
Grokster and the Future of the Net
02/01/2005 09:33 PMThe Supreme Court will hear the appeal of the Grokster
litigation on March 29. The case deals directly with the legality of
distributed peer-to-peer file-shsaring services, but its ramifications
could go much further. Like the landmark 1997 case striking down the
Communications Decency Act, the Grokster decision could be a
bellweather for Internet freedom... or it could push the Net down a
much less open, less innovative, less dynamic, and less valuable
path.
Several amicus briefs were just filed in the case. Ed Felten gives
a good
summary of what's wrong the with anti-P2P view:
"These briefs are caught between nostalgia for a past that never
existed, and false hope for future technologies that won't do the
job."
Like it or not, much more than the future of the music industry is
at stake here. In fact, business models for recorded music are are
among the least likely things to change depending on how Grokster
comes out. The P2P horse is out of the barn, but so is the licensed
digital music horse, thanks to iTunes, Real Rhapsody, Mercora, and
other innovators. I'm much more worried about what the case might
mean for the Net as a whole.
In the Wake of Grokster...
In the Wake of Grokster...
08/27/2004 01:58 PM...the Justice Department is conducting criminal investigations of
file-sharing networks. This development illustrates a point I made in
a previous posting (a Lessig point) about the relationship of
substitution between law and technology. The Grokster decision last
week, if it holds up, will facilitate circumvention of copyright law
by file...
EFF: Countdown to Grokster
EFF: Countdown to Grokster
03/27/2005 04:46 AMLivebl0gging Grokster
Livebl0gging Grokster
03/29/2005 11:57 AMCory Doctorow:
Several bloggers -- include EFF Staff Attorney Wendy Seltzer -- are in
DC today for the Supreme Court hearing on Grokster, where the movie
studios are asking the court to criminalize any technology where the
designers have failed to anticipate the ways in which it could be used
to infringe and designed to block it (e.g., email, photocopiers, the
Internet). They're blogging it and posting pictures, too.
Wendy Seltzer Link,
Machination.org Link,
Photos
(
Thanks, Cyrus!)
Grokster, the FEC, Apple and Me
Grokster, the FEC, Apple and Me
03/31/2005 09:04 AMExtreme Tech Mar 31 2005 1:14PM GMT
The Grokster appeal
The Grokster appeal
02/10/2004 02:53 AMNews from the oral argument in the Grokster case yesterday is quite
good. The argument on our side of the debate was excellent. Fred was
extraordinary, and the judges seemed perfectly tuned to the issues.
EFF's got a recording of the argument
here, and Ed Lee's got a nice write up on his
blog as well.
The tide is turning.
Grokster is the new Betamax
Grokster is the new Betamax
02/11/2004 12:29 PMMy cow-orker Ren Bucholz has done a magnificent and pithy analysis of
the parallels between the 1983 Supreme Court arguments in Betamax, in
which the studios argued that the VCR should be criminalized, and last
week's arguments in the 9th Circuit Appeals Court in Grokster, in
which the recording industry argued the same thing about P2P
file-sharing networks:
Later in last week's argument, Judge Thomas took Frackman's argument
(knowledge - ability = contributory infringement) to its logical
conclusion by asking whether he thought Xerox should be held liable
when a UCLA student uses a photocopier to make infringing copies.
Here's what happened to Kroft in '83:
Justice Stevens: Under your test, supposing
somebody tells the Xerox people that there are people making illegal
copies with their machine, and they know it. What are they supposed to
do? ... Your view of the law is that as long as Xerox knows that there
is some illegal copying going on, Xerox is a contributory
infringer?
Kroft: To be consistent, your honor, I'd have to say
yes.
Justice Stevens: A rather extreme position.
LinkGrokster Wins
Grokster Wins
08/19/2004 04:59 PMGrokster has won MGM v. Grokster. Analysis coming soon....
Grokster transcript PDF
Grokster transcript PDF
04/07/2005 02:57 AMCory Doctorow:
The oral argument from last month's Grokster Supreme Court case (where
EFF argued that technology companies shouldn't have to imagine all the
infringing ways that their customers might use their products and
design to prevent them -- otherwise the iPod, Outlook and the Xerox
machine would all be illegal) is available online now as a transcript.
It's 55 pages long, but the type is big and double-spaced!
144K PDF Link
(
via Copyfight)
"Let the truth be told - MGM vs
Grokster"
"Let the truth be told - MGM vs
Grokster"
03/29/2005 04:56 AM"A Few Notes from the Grokster Argument"
"A Few Notes from the Grokster Argument"
03/29/2005 11:44 PMReluctantly siding with Grokster
Reluctantly siding with Grokster
03/30/2005 09:22 PMIn his post about t
he MGM v. Grokster case, Christopher Baus asks "Where's Nick Bradbury?"
It's a fair question given my stance on
software piracy, but as I've
written before, I believe it's a mistake to hold developers of P2P
products liable for the copyright infringement of their users.
As you can imagine, that's not an easy position for me to take
since 100% of my income comes from software sales. My work is pirated
left and right on file-sharing networks, so I'd probably turn a blind
eye if I thought this case would affect only the current swarm of
spyware-infested P2P apps that were so obviously designed for
"sharing" copyrighted material. But that's the problem. This case
doesn't just affect these piracy tools. It could affect
technology like BitTorrent which is widely used for piracy, yet has legit
imate uses as well.
And I have to be concerned about how this case could impact small
developers such as myself by burdening us with legal concerns. Mark
Cuban hit upon this in his
blog recently:
"If Grokster loses, technological innovation might not
die, but it will have such a significant price tag associated with it,
it will be the domain of the big corporations only."
Look at it this way: if people use FeedDemon to subscribe
to warez feeds and download copyrighted material, should my company be
held liable? The idea seems ridiculous given that I obviously didn't
design FeedDemon for this purpose, but this possibility won't seem as
far-fetched if MGM wins this case.
As an aside, I look at the current crop of file-sharing software
and see an opportunity for someone. As the success of iTunes has
shown, there are millions of customers who are willing to dump
file-sharing tools in favor of a more legitimate solution. I'd love
to see a tool which enabled purchasing software as easily as you can
purchase music on iTunes (look at RealArcade for a
specialized example of this). These days I buy far more
music than I did before I switc
hed to iTunes, and the primary reason for this is that it's so
easy. If instead of simply clicking "Buy Now" to purchase music I had
to type in my contact information, credit card details, etc., with
every purchase, I'd buy a fraction of the music I currently do. Why
not sell software the same way?
Sought for MGM v. Grokster:
Non-Infringing P2P Use
Sought for MGM v. Grokster:
Non-Infringing P2P Use
12/22/2004 01:40 AMSlashdot Dec 20 2004 5:26PM GMT
Grokster briefs torrent
Grokster briefs torrent
03/26/2005 05:13 AMCory Doctorow:
Thad sez, "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 for 74 briefs
in 20.7MBGrokster And EFF Get Big Bucks Backer
Grokster And EFF Get Big Bucks Backer
03/28/2005 04:42 PMInternet Billionare <a
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Cuban">Mark
Cuban</a> has announced his intention to financially support the
EFF and Grokster. Cuban, who believes that any ruling could
potentially hurt innocent businessmen like himself, announced his
plans on his weblog; he said that "the EFF and others came to me
and asked if I would finance the legal effort against MGM. I said yes.
I would provide them the money they need."
Tomorrow, the US Supreme Court will hear the case of MGM vs. Grokster.
Involving more than 28 of the world's biggest media companies, the
lawsuit also includes P2P vendors Kazaa and Morpheus and attempts to
set a precedent against other uses of p2p technology. Grokster is
being defended by the EFF. The case has been brought to the Supreme
Court after a lower court ruled in Grokster’s favour, and the media
companies appealed.
In a post on Saturday, Cuban remarked that "If Grokster loses,
technological innovation might not die, but it will have such a
significant price tag associated with it, it will be the domain of the
big corporations only." He went onto say that "It wont be a
good day when high school entrepreneurs have to get a fairness opinion
from a technology oriented law firm to confirm that big music or movie
studios wont sue you because they can come up with an angle that makes
a judge believe the technology might impact the music business. It
will be a sad day when American corporations start to hold their US
digital innovations and inventions overseas to protect them from the
RIAA, moving important jobs overseas with them."
The EFF plan to use the so called "Betamax" defence.
"The copyright law principles set out in the Sony Betamax case
have served innovators, copyright industries, and the public well for
20 years," said Fred von Lohmann, EFF's IP attorney. "We at
EFF look forward to the Supreme Court reaffirming the applicability of
Betamax in the 21st century."
View:
EFF
Information |
Cuban's
BlogRead full story...Camping Out for the Grokster Case
Camping Out for the Grokster Case
03/30/2005 06:49 AMCold and sometimes rainy weather didn't deter some from waiting in
line for the Grokster hearing. Pilgrims came from places like Canada
and California to watch the historic file-sharing case unfold. Katie
Dean reports from Washington.
Grokster argument, the electronica mix
Grokster argument, the electronica mix
08/22/2004 07:30 AMCory Doctorow: MLFG, a techno artist, has set the
good guys' closing arguments in the Grokster case to music. This is
the dancing-est legal argument I've ever heard:
pub-pub-pub-pub-pub-pub-public domain materials. Seriously, this
rocks.
Part 1, 1.5MB MP3 Link,
Part 2, 970k MP3 Link
(
Thanks, Shawn!)
Grokster argument analysis from law
student
Grokster argument analysis from law
student
03/29/2005 05:20 PMCory Doctorow:
This law student who attended Grokster has written a stellar account
of the argument, giving a good, nuanced analysis of what the lawyers
and the judges were up to.
At least some of the Justices, Scalia in particular, seemed troubled
by how an inventor would know, at the time of inventing, how its
invention might be marketed in the future. How, some of the Justices
asked MGM, could the inventors of the iPod (or the VCR, or the
photocopier, or even the printing press) know whether they could go
ahead with developing their invention? It surely would not be
difficult for them to imagine that somebody might hit upon the idea of
marketing their device as a tool for infringement.
MGM's answer to this was pretty unsatisfying. They said that at the
time the iPod was invented, it was clear that there were many
perfectly lawful uses for it, such as ripping one's own CD and storing
it in the iPod. This was a very interesting point for them to make,
not least because I would wager that there are a substantial number of
people on MGM's side of the case who don't think that example is one
bit legal. But they've now conceded the contrary in open court, so if
they actually win this case they'll be barred from challenging
"ripping" in the future under the doctrine of judicial estoppel. In
any event, though, MGM's iPod example did exactly what their proposed
standard expressly doesn't do: it evaluated the legality of the
invention based on the knowledge available to the inventor at the
time, not from a post hoc perspective that asks how the invention is
subsequently marketed or what business models later grow up around it.
Link
(
Thanks, Donna!)
Update: Timothy sez, "I'm not
just a 'law student,' I'm an attorney with ten years of experience in
Supreme Court and appellate litigation."
Grokster campout in Wired News
Grokster campout in Wired News
03/30/2005 04:32 AMCory Doctorow:
Wired News's Katie Dean covered the Grokster trial in DC yesterday,
camping out with the copyfighters who waited all night to get into the
hearing.
For entertainment, the file-sharing faithful brought laptops and
books. Disabato also brought an iPod shuffle loaded with controversial
music from Dangermouse, a DJ known for causing a kerfuffle when he
illegally mixed the Beatles' White Album with Jay Z's The Black Album.
He also included a bootleg mix called "Piracy Funds Terrorism," by MIA
and Diplo, on his iPod. He brought some small speakers to broadcast
the music to others in line but wasn't sure if the security guards
around the court would let him use them.
As the night wore on, Seth Schoen, staff technologist for the
Electronic Frontier Foundation, ordered five pizzas to be delivered to
the Supreme Court. Others took turns going for coffee.
Peer-to-peer software engineer Francis Crick (the grandson of Francis
Crick, one of the discoverers of the double-helix structure of DNA)
made the trip from Los Angeles. He said if the entertainment companies
succeed in shutting down peer-to-peer networks, the case will impair
the development of new technologies in the United States.
Link
(
via Copyfight)
Interview With Mark Cuban About Grokster
Interview With Mark Cuban About Grokster
03/31/2005 12:18 AMCourt: Grokster, StreamCast Not Liable
Court: Grokster, StreamCast Not Liable
08/19/2004 07:11 PMGrokster and StreamCast Networks are not legally responsible for the
swapping of copyright content through their file-sharing software, a
federal appeals court rules in a blow to movie studios and record
labels.
Grokster case may have large impact
beyond P-to-P
Grokster case may have large impact
beyond P-to-P
03/24/2005 12:14 PMWASHINGTON -- When the entertainment industry faces off against two
peer-to-peer (P-to-P) software vendors in the U.S. Supreme Court
Tuesday, nothing less than the future of technological innovation is
at stake, according to some technology trade groups.
Grokster Wins Big in Ninth Circuit
Grokster Wins Big in Ninth Circuit
08/19/2004 04:39 PMGrokster Briefs demonstrating the point
of p2p
Grokster Briefs demonstrating the point
of p2p
03/26/2005 01:38 PMA cool new (or I think they're new) organization,
outragedmoderates.org has
posted a
BitTorrent link of all the briefs
filed in the
Grok
ster case.
How A Reporter Spins The Grokster
Decision
How A Reporter Spins The Grokster
Decision
08/20/2004 11:35 PMWhile most news organizations focused on the judges decision or the
implications of the
Appeals
Court Grokster decision, an article in the UK is somewhat amusing
for the clear (but unstated) bias the reporter has,
si
ding with the entertainment industry on the decision. The
article leads with: "Attempts by the music and movie industries to
clamp down on internet piracy suffered a major blow...." That's
funny, the entertainment industry won the case against Napster, and
that
made the problem worse because people moved on to
decentralized file sharing apps. So, this wasn't an attempt to "clamp
down on internet piracy," but a weak attempt to blame some companies
for internet piracy that occurred using their technology because the
industry refuses to come up with a more modern business model. This
point, central to the ruling earlier this week is completely buried in
the final paragraph of the piece. The article also only includes
outraged quotes by the heads of the RIAA and the MPAA but no one from
Grokster or Streamcast.
Why the Supreme Court will hear Grokster
Why the Supreme Court will hear Grokster
08/22/2004 07:30 AMCory Doctorow: Over on Lessig's blog, Tim Wu has
enumerated 10 reasons that the Supreme Court is likely to hear the
Grokster case:
1. These is a stated legal conflict on the Sony standard as between
the 7th and 9th Circuits;
2. The 7th and 9th Circuits disagree (albeit in partially in dicta) on
the relevance of willful blindness to secondary liability;
4. The Court has these matters in hand: it has granted cert. in many
similar cases historically (Sony, 1980s, White-Smith (the Piano Roll
case) 1909, Teleprompter and Fortnightly (Cable / Broadcast, 1960s &
1970s);
5. The Court has a vague sense that some far-out stuff is going on in
the field of “Computer Law” that maybe it should check
out;
6. Law clerks use KaZaA & BitTorrent to plan basketball games;
7. Stevens and Breyer deeply dig this stuff;
8. Scalia likes anything having to do with property;
9. Souter got his first computer last week.
And most importantly,
10. The Court loves to be the center of attention, and this would make
it so.
LinkAppeals Court Rules For Grokster
Appeals Court Rules For Grokster
08/19/2004 02:20 PMWhile Senator Hatch is trying to overturn the
original
decision that said file sharing programs weren't liable for
copyright infringement that occurred on their networks, the Appeals
Court has
upheld the original ruling. The Reuters report only
has two paragraphs now, but I'm assuming it will be expanded with
details. Once again, it looks like the courts have been able to
understand the difference between a person doing something illegal,
and a company that provides a tool. This ruling isn't a huge
surprise, of course. During the trial, the judges made it clear they
weren't
buying the entertainment industry's version of the story, when the
judge told the RIAA lawyer: "Let me say what I think your problem is.
You can use these harsh terms, but you are dealing with something new,
and the question is, does the statutory monopoly that Congress has
given you reach out to that something new. And that's a very debatable
question. You don't solve it by calling it 'theft.' You have to show
why this court should extend a statutory monopoly to cover the new
thing. That's your problem. Address that if you would. And curtail the
use of abusive language."
Media lawyer's bl0g from Grokster
hearings
Media lawyer's bl0g from Grokster
hearings
03/30/2005 04:32 AMCory Doctorow:
The Media Access Project's Harold Feld attended yesterday's Grokster
hearing and has blogged his impressions of the proceedings:
Don Virelli led off for the recording industry. He began with the
assertion that Grokster's P2P software has no legitimate uses. The
justices reacted skeptically. "Didn't the court below find lots of
legitimate uses, such as distribution of public domain works or
distribution of works authorized by the rights holders, even if the
vast majority of traffic was arguably infringing?" Virelli stuck to
his guns, thus falling prey to the trap that has undermined industry
so many times in this fight: they over sell.
Scalia then started in on innovation: "But what about inventors? How
will they know what people will use this for? Do they get a free ride
for a few years to see if the predominant use is infringing or
non-infringing?" Again, Virelli went too far. "In reality, these
people don't get sued just for inventing stuff" he claimed, while the
entire bar section rolled its eyes. Again, the Justices weren't
buying. "Inventors need certainty they won't be sued or they won't
invent," said Breyer.
Link
(
Thanks, John!)
Photos of Grokster demonstrators: DON'T
TOUCH MY TIVO!
Photos of Grokster demonstrators: DON'T
TOUCH MY TIVO!
03/30/2005 04:32 AMCory Doctorow:
Emily, a DC native, got some great pix of the protestors outside of
yesterday's Grokster hearing (carrying signs like, RIAA KEEP YOUR
HANDS OFF MY IPOD and DON'T TOUCH MY TIVO), and posted them to Flickr,
tagged with "grokster" -- got your own Grokster photos? Upload and tag
'em!
Link
(
Thanks, Emily!)
Listen In: Insight Out: Of the charts,
Grokster week
Listen In: Insight Out: Of the charts,
Grokster week
03/31/2005 05:57 PMRadio play and MTV drive traditional record charts but what influence
allows M.C. Hammer to chart at the iTunes Music Store? And can balance
be found in the latest P2P debates? Playlist’s Glenn Peoples
offers his take.
EFF staffers bl0gging this morning's
Grokster hearing
EFF staffers bl0gging this morning's
Grokster hearing
03/29/2005 03:08 PMCory Doctorow:
The EFF staffers who attended the Grokster Supreme Court case this
morning are out in the air -- and blogging. The EFF Deep Links blog is
accumulating posts from staffers who've found WiFi or whose handhelds
are online.
At the oral arguments in MGM v. Grokster before the
Supreme Court today, it was hard to tell which side a majority of the
justices fell on. But one thing was clear: they were asking the right
questions.
Over and over, the justices hammered the lawyer for the RIAA and MPAA
with questions about the potential impact of a ruling in their favor
against small inventors -- the "guy in the garage" as Justice David
Souter put it. Justice Stephen Breyer also grilled MGM's attorney
about whether lawyers who advise technologists -- for example, the
inventor of the next iPod -- could give any assurance at all to their
clients under MGM's rule that if he would not be sued at some point
down the road for copyright infringement.
Justice Scalia was also skeptical of the plaintiffs' arguments,
questioning whether their proposed "primary use" test made any sense,
given that the balance of lawful versus unlawful uses of technology
are constantly changing.
Justices
Ask the Right Questions in MGM v. Grokster,
Grokster: From
the Courthouse Steps,
EFF Goes to
Washington
(
Thanks, Donna!)
Mark Cuban to finance Grokster defense
Mark Cuban to finance Grokster defense
03/27/2005 05:49 PMBillionaire announces he will finance the peer-to-peer software
company's defense to preserve technological innovation.
Grok Description matches for Grokster roundups
GrokA matches for Grokster roundups
Grokster roundups
