In April 2003, Judge Stephen Wilson threw out the case against
Streamcase Networks Inc., the company behind the Morpheus
file-sharing software, and Grokster Ltd, saying they "are not
significantly different from companies that sell home video
recorders or copy machines, both of which can be and are used to
infringe copyrights."
There was much reference to a 1980s decision on Sony's Betamax
video recorder which, at the time, had been accused of infringing
TV and movie studios' copyrights. Sony won that case because the
machine had significant non-infringing uses.
The argument of the entertainment industry in the 9th US Circuit
Court of Appeals yesterday was that the Betamax analogy was flawed
because Sony could not control the way in which consumers used its
video recorders.
According to Associated Press, Russ Frackman, representing the
music and movie companies in their appeal, argued that unlike
VCR-makers in the 1980s, Grokster and Morpheus can filter
the copyright content from their systems, but choose not to. He
said the reason for this is that it's the free songs and movies
that attract millions of users – and that's what generates the ad
revenues to feed the companies.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is supporting Grokster and
Morpheus in the appeal.
