Grokster commentary
by Kevin Dangoor
Personally, I’ve never used Grokster and would probably have no familiarity with Grokster if it weren’t for the fact that their name is attached to a case that made it to the Supreme Court. Boing Boing, not surprisingly, has some good coverage of today’s decision in the case. Here’s the roundup of Boing Boing’s coverage:
* [Cory Doctorow of the EFF has a PopSci editorial](http://www.boingboing.net/2005/06/27/corys_grokster_edito.html)
* Grokster had a press conference that [you can listen to](http://www.boingboing.net/2005/06/27/grokster_pressconfer.html)
* You can read notes about [Hollywood's press conference](http://www.boingboing.net/2005/06/27/notes_on_riaampaa_pr.html)
* Former Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) head Hillary Rosen cautions that a court victory [does not necessarily translate into a real-life victory](http://www.boingboing.net/2005/06/27/hilary_rosen_killing.html)
* The Grokster decision can be downloaded via another P2P mechanism: [a bittorrent file](http://www.boingboing.net/2005/06/27/grokster_decision_in.html)
* Here are some notes from the [pro-Grokster press conference](http://www.boingboing.net/2005/06/27/progrokster_press_co.html)
* And here is the [early coverage](http://www.boingboing.net/2005/06/27/blogs_on_todays_scot.html) on the decision.
That’s a lot of links, and they’re all just going to *Boing Boing*, which has even more links when you follow those links. Gadzooks.
In a nutshell, if you make and promote software as being good at aiding in copyright infringement, you can be held liable for that.
What do I think about the decision? I go along with what Cory Doctorow had to say in PopSci. The more we stack our laws in favor of Hollywood, the more we lose our ability to compete in technology. A lot of really cool ideas will never see the light of day, because of the forest of lawyers standing between the person with the idea and the individual consumer. Or rather, a lot of really cool American ideas will never see the light of day. There are many countries that have not yet adopted some of the crazy laws we have here.
The problem with Grokster doesn’t lie with the court, in my opinion. I think the real problem is the laws that have been passed in the first place. We’re giving away America’s ability to innovate, one bad law at a time.