The End of File-Sharing?

The Supreme Court (surely a computer-savvy bunch) ruled today, unanimously, that internet file-sharing services are to take the blame if their intended purpose is for users to illegally download music and movies. In the court's opinion, Justice David H. Souter wrote, "We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by the clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties."

We all know that the RIAA and other such groups are claiming losses of millions of dollars to illegal downloads. This obviously affects larger artists more than smaller ones: Britney more than Annie, for example.

While this is good news for record companies and movie studios, it is most certainly bad news for the consumer electronics industry, which has seen great growth recently with burnable CDs/DVDs and MP3 players such as Apple's iPod. With devices that can store over 10,000 songs, it would be difficult to find an iPod user that has paid $10,000 to the iTunes Music Store for each song.

Now the case will return to a lower court, which previously ruled in favor of Grokster Ltd. In previous hearings, two lower courts had ruled in favor of Grokster, based on the Supreme Court's 1984 decision that Sony could not be held responsible if its customers used VCRs to illegally copy movies. The original rulings argued that the peer-to-peer services can indeed be used in legal ways and that the files were not hosted by the services themselves.

Justice Souter also said he believed that the file-sharing services could be found guilty by determining whether or not they marketed the product in a way that promotes illegal sharing.

This ruling also raises issues of what other mediums can be held liable under this legalese. Can Memorex be sued if their blank CD-Rs are used to pass music back and forth? What about AIM and e-mail services and their ability to transfer files?

By the way, today the Supreme Court also decided to continue to allow the Ten Commandments to be displayed on government property. But we're Pitchfork, not CNN.