Supreme Court rules against P2P, Apple to benefit?

They didn't rule against P2P. All they did was take away the Betamax "Get Out Of jail Free" card. The Betamax decision was that since VCRs had many legitimate uses, the manufacturers were not responsible for their customers who used them to break the law. This decision says that this protection doesn't apply if the illegal use is promoted by the manufacturer. What category Grokster or any other product falls under has to be decided by a lower court.

The lower courts reasoned that, like VCRs, the file-sharing software can be used for "substantial" legal purposes, such as giving away free songs, free software or government documents. They also said the file-sharing services were not legally responsible because they don't have central servers pointing users to copyright material.

But in Monday's ruling, Souter said lower courts could find the file-sharing services responsible by examining factors such as how companies marketed the product or whether they took easily available steps to reduce infringing uses.

OK, so if I understand the court's logic here - then GUN makers should be liable for any illegal acts their product users will engage in while using their products.

I'll give up my rights to P2P if the Supreme Court is willing to make the same stance for handguns and other firearms. Sounds like a fair trade to me.

No you do not understand the court's logic. If the gun manifacturers are advertising and talking about how it m akes it easy to commit crimes with their products, then you could sue them. But the gun manufacturers don't advertise that using their products helps you in your crime sprees or anything of the sort. Totally different.

Not really. P2P software companies will just have to be careful not to promote the use of their software for copyright-infringing uses.

I'll leave it to the legal eagles to hash out how this affects the Betamax decision. IMHO, things probably wont change much in the short term. This will have to be litigated further.

the supreme court doesn't rarely make wildly new decisions, but most people understand the impact...by changing the betamax rule, they've opened it up, such that the lower courts can rule against any particular company, that they deem unworthy of the protection.

that means the bush appointee's can and will arbitrarily rule against any companies, citing this precedent.

if you are a legitimate company, but are looking at a 50% chance...oh nevermind, just a 10% chance that you will be litigated into bankruptcy...you cannot take that risk.

it's the end of innovation in many important areas of p2p.

All the P2P companies have to do is go on an anti-theft PR campaign?

Wow, that was easy ...

Not really. What it means is that if a Gun maker was selling guns and activly promote using them to kill people, any people, not just criminals, then gun makers would be liable.

"lower courts could find the file-sharing services responsible by examining factors such as how companies marketed the product or whether they took easily available steps to reduce infringing uses."

If a gun maker markets the item as "kill everyone with it. kill loved one, hated ones, all ones" and made it really easy to kill people with it (gave you a laser target, easy flow trigger, etc, for the sole reason of killing someone) that is where the gun maker is liable.

A P2P program maker who activly markets their app as a program to download music without paying for the music, then the program maker is liable. Plus if they make it easier to download those songs (like the multi-source features so groups of like files are clumped together so you are dead sure to get that song), they could also be held liable.

Well, I'd disagree. Gun makers advertise or promote things related to killing (rate of fire, impact, penetration & stopping power - etc) , and guns (especially hand guns) are designed for one thing - killing.

And since when do PTP software companies actually advertise/promote their ability to do illegal things? Did Grokster actually do this? Or was this implied.

...judges are bought.

'nuff said.

And since when do PTP software companies actually advertise/promote their ability to do illegal things?

That was Napster's business model. I thought they should have been slapped down fast and hard before they brought the whole category of software into ill repute... but instead they hung on so long they were able to create a brand worth buying and re-purposing as a legit download service.

I think using the "-ster" suffix may have been a mistake. :)