Print this article | E-mail this article | Comment on this article

Supreme Court to Hear File Sharing Case

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews

January 21, 2005, 1:23 PM

The U.S. Supreme Court Thursday said it will hear oral arguments in a case that could determine the legality of file sharing networks on March 29. The case stems from a suit filed by the Motion Picture Association of America and Recording Industry Association of America against the Grokster and Morpheus Networks, which the groups lost in lower courts.

The case follows a similar case against Kazaa in Australia, where a decision is expected in March.

Add a Comment (8 Comments)

BetaNews reserves the right to remove any comment at any time for any reason. Please keep your responses appropriate and on topic. Foul language and personal attacks will not be tolerated.

By Maxwolf

posted Jan 24, 2005 - 9:46 AM

Ignore them and all of this and just keep downloading what you want to listen to. Do you really think they are going to stop file-sharing? yeah right.

Score: 0

By spiffyjeff

posted Jan 24, 2005 - 2:04 PM

Let's not allow them to stop file sharing. File sharing is not illegal. People seem to think that the only things found on filesharing is illegal. Well you can place most things you find on sourceforge.net and archive.org into filesharing. I will soon be putting some of my photographs in filesharing and they will be released with a creative commons license.

There are artists that dont care about the money and do it for the art, me being one of them. I get nearly the same feeling when I help someone for free as I do when I give out my work for free. Lets stop being so money hungry and greedy. We should be about "people helping people," not "how much are you gonna pay me?."

Score: 0

By plumlipstick

posted Jan 23, 2005 - 11:57 PM

The lawsuits and other actions taken by the recording and motion picture industries are actively pushing me away from buying their products. They just don't seem to get it that bullying people won't solve the problems here, theirs or ours. I used to buy an album once a week. But over the past 18 months or so, I stopped because of the continued price raising and the crazy copyright scheme they've got in place that requires me to buy a new CD player to listen to what I buy. I figure that if they're going to treat me like a pirate, I guess I should make sure I fit the bill.
As I read all of the articles about file sharing, I keep wondering about something. Since sharing files is costing the corporations billions of dollars, if everyone were to stop sharing files and do it their way, will they pass their saving/profits on to us in the form of lower prices for CDs, movies, and concerts? I somehow don't think they will. I don't mind paying for what I use. I do mind being overcharged. When it costs $25 to buy a CD that only has 3 songs on it that I know and like, buying that CD isn't a very appeling prospect. And $90 per ticket plus a handling fee to see Phil Collins is ridiculous to me. It seems to me that they'd get a lot further if they'd actually ask their consumer base what we'd like to buy and what we would be able to pay for that instead of making us their adversary. They might find that with a little give and take, they'd make a lot more money. Look at the book publishing industry to see what I mean. :)

Score: 0

By roj

edited Jan 22, 2005 - 11:51 PM

We didn't pass DMCA.

We are allowed to make backup copies of our software and movies.

File sharing is legal.

Wake up and take your consumer rights back, America. They're being raped by greedy and unprincipled brigands who have forgotten that their customers are the only reason they exist.

And you've allowed them to do this by your lack of diligence and apathy.

'nuff said.

Score: 0

By TheRecklessWanderer

posted Jan 23, 2005 - 6:36 PM

I wonder if you would feel the same if you put your blood, sweat and tears into something to support your family, and somebody came along and started sharing it with everybody, taking your livelihood?

Score: 0

By roj

edited Jan 24, 2005 - 1:30 PM

A nice argument but trite and pat because:

1) We know the artist sees a mere pittance of what they are entitled to - the record companies and distribution channel keep the lion's share

2) More and mroe artists are mving to self-distribution, thus cutting out the aforementioned brigands and giving them more control over their efforts

3) More and more artists are starting to encourage downloads because it's free advertising and helps their sales (Radiohead / Evanescence)

4) The whole "the industry is hurting because of file sharing" is a blatant lie and has been proved so by myriad independent statistics and even Harvard researchers

5) Album sales are actually *rising*

In the face of all this, having one's consumer rights raped merely highlights how the entertainment industry controls the laws being passed, how law enforcement is being played for a patsy and finally how big business has eroded the rights of the individual in the good ol' US of A.

To give an example of an extreme case, we wouldn't even consider laws in this country (Canada) that would outlaw the bypassing of commercial on DVDs - you guys actually were misguided enough to have such a law put forward.

Stop Being Sheep And Wake Up.

Score: 0

By sjc001

posted Jan 23, 2005 - 10:31 AM

Their comsumer rights aren't the only ones they're losing....

Score: 0

By roj

posted Jan 23, 2005 - 3:11 PM

Very true and my original post did contain a comment on the Patriot Act (hint: it was anything but complementary and I edited this sentence three times before tabling this final version) but I removed it bacause I didn't deem it relevant to the discussion at hand. :)

Score: 0

Dec 5 - 1:45 AM ET Shazam: eight million songs of the eternal Now

Dec 4 - 7:30 PM ET Comcast to offer bandwidth consumption monitor

Dec 4 - 5:37 PM ET Counterfeiters sing the 'Blue' as Microsoft lawyers up

Dec 4 - 4:40 PM ET Opera 10 alpha shows off new Presto rendering engine

Dec 4 - 2:29 PM ET Apple: Psystar clone-maker is working with unnamed collaborators

Dec 4 - 2:21 PM ET Windows Live rollout sketchy, team apologizes

Dec 4 - 2:20 PM ET Stinging from a revenue shortfall, Adobe to shed workers

Dec 4 - 11:47 AM ET The storm hits AT&T, with a five-digit headcount reduction

Dec 4 - 11:42 AM ET TV sports adopts Web coverage, plays with iPhones

Dec 4 - 11:24 AM ET Microsoft seeks 'community' help to make IE8 Standards Mode work out