Don't Stop Grokkin': Apparent MGM v. Grokster slamdunk is really a mixed bag

Reason Online ^ | June 27, 2005 | Mike Godwin

[Paradox]

If you had a chance to listen to the content companies' press conference on the afternoon the Supreme Court's decision in MGM v. Grokster was announced, you heard nothing but crows of victory. The word "unanimous" was repeated umpteen times (the decision was 9-0 against the peer-to-peer company defendants), and much was said about how unequivocal the record companies' and movie companies' victory was.

As a technical matter the content companies won MGM v. Grokster; the decision remands the case to a trial court for further factfinding as to whether defendants "induced" infringement. But it's clear that they didn't win anything like what they had been asking the Supremes for—a rule that would penalize any company that made money off a product widely used for infringement, regardless of what the company intended. And though the technical companies and consumer groups are troubled by the outcome in this case, there's still much to encourage them.

...

[Paradox]

Things are not always as clear cut as they may first seem..

[Altair333]

People on this board criticized this 9-0 decision, but the way it was written, it just basically said "if you intentionally faciliate the violation of copyright laws you may be held liable."

As a legal matter, it's pretty difficult to find fault with that holding. Which is why not a single justice dissented.

[Common Tator]

Laws are only valid when enough people obey them. If millions of people disobey the law, then there is no chance the law can be enforced by normal means. That is law enforcement based on finding the violaters, charging them, and then convicting will not work.

The Internet is an international market place. A Russian, for example, could develop and sell the download software from Russian sites. If the Russian government was getting a cut, there is no way our courts and laws could shut the sale of the illegal software down. And if millions of people are using it there is no way the government can stop its use by normal law enforcement methods.

If millions of people are downloading one could not get a jury to convict. Local state and National governments that tried to enforce such a law would sooner find new leaders elected who would not enforce the law.

The only solution is some sort of electronic traffic cop on the Internet. A software cop housed at ISP locations that would be able recognize illegal transfers and stop them from being completed.

Government could force ISP's in the USA to install packet sniffing software that could catch illegal transfers and send them to that big bit bucket in the sky. That is the only workable way for government to prevent illegal transfers.

Anything short of that solution is doomed to failure.

[Uncle Fud]

"Government could force ISP's in the USA to install packet sniffing software that could catch illegal transfers and send them to that big bit bucket in the sky. That is the only workable way for government to prevent illegal transfers."

I think you are absolutely right.

What percentage of broadband accounts do you think would be cancelled if such a mandate were put in place?

[andyk]

A software cop housed at ISP locations that would be able recognize illegal transfers and stop them from being completed.

I don't think this could work. IMHO, there's nothing in MP3s, or other media files, that make them inherently illegal. For it to work, the software cop would have to know whether or not you already own the material that's being downloaded.

[expat_panama]

We hear 'tin-foil' stories of the CIA monitoring all the world's phone and email traffic with flagging software -a lot of the stories are even true (crinkle crinkle).   The problem is when you need a human being to review all the flags that come up, not to mention all those disconnected dots that pile up.

Extra problems that come up include the fact that hundreds of millions of internet subscribers use ISP's outside the US.  That plus there's so much public domain files whose status gets cleared on one jurisdiction and is contested in another.

Bottom line: we keep hearing about the end of P2P internet activity, and it's still here.

[myself6]

That wouldn't work either. File names change, file characteristics change. They might be able to have software determine it was a video file being sent but not WHAT the video is of. That would require reassembling all the packets and a human viewing the resulting video to determine if this file was illegally transfered. There are many more arguments that can be made after this is done as to the transfers legitimacy, but it isn't going to happen.

Fundamental changes would need to take place in the way networking actually works on the "Internet". Changes that would make it slower, less flexible, more restrictive. The changes needed would effectively destroy the "Internet".

The old media companies are screwed, and I couldn't be happier. I take great pleasure in watching the demise of the socialist department of PR.

[Nathan Zachary]

"Government could force ISP's in the USA to install packet sniffing software that could catch illegal transfers and send them to that big bit bucket in the sky. That is the only workable way for government to prevent illegal transfers."

That would be akin to illegal search and seizure. Invasion of privacy. It's the same as police setting up a roadblock and searching everyones trunk without just cause.

[Common Tator]

That wouldn't work either. File names change, file characteristics change. They might be able to have software determine it was a video file being sent but not WHAT the video is of. That would require reassembling all the packets and a human viewing the resulting video to determine if this file was illegally transfered. There are many more arguments that can be made after this is done as to the transfers legitimacy, but it isn't going to happen.

You are assuming that the war will be fought with computers and software that exists today.

10 to 15 years from now today's machines will be as obsolete as a DOS 6.0 PC with 640 K of Ram and a 40 meg hard drive running at 16 MHZ. The faster the hardware, the wider the data bus, and the cheaper the memory the easier pattern recognition becomes.

You sound like the GM guy I debated in the 1970s who argued that auto body construction could not be automated because welding required humans.

You can not expect to fight tomorrow's war against todays technology.

[myself6]

:)

I do not doubt that at some point software will be able to discern star wars episode 56 from birthday at grandpas house. It will take a kind of advanced AI to do it but it is possible. (far far from now after the old media is already wounded beyond repair)


What you are missing is that the people who want to share information (video, audio, ones and zeros, etc) will make use of newer software as well...