File-sharing suffers major defeat

[botmeister]

The US Supreme Court has ruled that file-sharing companies are to blame for what users do with their software.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4627679.stm

So who are they going to sue when the P2P network goes fully open source?

ISP's must be next on the hit list.

[stefanhendriks]

funny how the US gives the world a stupid example (again). But then again, i don't care, as i live in the Netherlands, they cannot sue me for anything. The nice things about laws is, they belong only to the country that make them. So if the US wants to screw up their users, go ahead!

I am wondering when one will sue a company producing knifes... will they sue them for 'making it possible to kill someone with their tools' ?... :S

[HangFire]

Originally Posted by Dan Glickman

Today's unanimous ruling is an historic victory for intellectual property in the digital age, and is good news for consumers, artists, innovation--

ha ha ha ha.

[Leagle]

Originally Posted by stefanhendriks

I am wondering when one will sue a company producing knifes... will they sue them for 'making it possible to kill someone with their tools' ?... :S

Actually that is a serious issue. The design of some weapons makes them popular for illegal and murderous use. Producers should be held accountable for their part of the problem, and their denial of it.

[botmeister]

P2P aside, a lot of things - too numerous tomention - can be used for illegal purposes, and some of these things are more popular than others because of the design.

The p2p ruling opens a huge can of wriggling worms which is why all the lower courts rightfully rejected the claim.

I think this sentence sums it all up ...
If strictly interpreted the ruling means that these hi-tech firms will have to try to predict the ways people can use these devices to pirate copyrighted media and install controls to stop this infringement.

[Pierre-Marie Baty]

This will only encourage users to use more anonymizers, proxies and little known P2P clients. They're fighting water with a sabre.

[HangFire]

Yes, but it'll still be quite a few years till they reliaze their buisness model is obsolete. Lawyers win, consumers and technology loses.

[Zacker]

I think that this is very sad news. If you look at it, it is actually not just about p2p programs, it's regarding everything. Quite scary since everything practically can be used for bad stuff if you want.

[Exilibur]

I find the ruling quite reasonable.

They rule that if p2p software is marketing'ed as a tool to get illegal music and movies or something like that, then the creators of the software are responsibel for it.

[HangFire]

Its bad because it creates a slippery slope. They're going to keep pushing this farther and farther now since they've gained this little bit of ground. As its been said before, others such as ISPs are going to eventually be held responsible for their users.

Plus, as Botmeister pointed out:
If strictly interpreted the ruling means that these hi-tech firms will have to try to predict the ways people can use these devices to pirate copyrighted media and install controls to stop this infringement.

This means eventual monitoring by law enforcement of what ISP's clients do, and it means built-in corporate control of user's PCs (such as DRM).