The Grokster Case: a Win for File Sharers!

How the Ruling Turned Out

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What Do These Five Legal Points Mean?

It means that file sharing itself is not illegal. Hundreds of file sharing companies can continue their operations legally, as along as they do not actively encourage piracy. Groups like Bittorrent networks, Gnutella, eDonkey, Limewire and others can successfully dodge MPAA and RIAA lawsuits as long as they carefully present their services without encouraging piracy.

Hollywood Thinks "They Won Big" with Grokster.

Both the RIAA and MPAA are claiming that this Grokster decision has dealt a serious blow to P2P downloaders. This conclusion is wrong. The RIAA and MPAA are simply grandstanding to cover the real legal outcome of this case: online file sharing companies have now been given a loophole through which to continue their operations legally.

Because they cannot sue file sharing companies for their general activities, the MPAA and RIAA have now been limited to a single avenue of attack: they must go after private individuals in civil lawsuits. This will be egregiously more expensive and time-consuming than trying to target the file sharing companies.

The Dust is Settling...and P2P Continues.

No, the Grokster Case of 2005 is not an emancipation of file-sharers. There has been no special immunity granted to file sharing software manufacturers or to private users. But a special back door has now been left open for P2P users and P2P companies... a very narrow back door, but a legal one, nonetheless.

As of June 2005, the MPAA and RIAA can no longer prosecute file sharing companies directly if those companies carefully walk a fine line of conduct. Instead, the entertainment industry is now forced to wage their war on private individuals, not the technology hubs that they use. Although Hollywood does have the money to do this, it will now be a very expensive war for them to wage. And in the meantime, you can expect to see the continued thriving of bittorrents, Gnutella, Limewire, eDonkey, and other file sharing groups on the Net.

Congratulations, P2P file Sharers. The US Supreme Court has ruled in your favor.