The US Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday in an appeal by the entertainment industry against a ruling that companies providing peer-to-peer ( P2P ) file-sharing software are not liable for copyright infringement by users of the software.
The case turns on the interpretation of a 1980s Supreme Court 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.In an intensive hour-long hearing, the Supreme Court Justices tried to establish whether a ruling in favour of the industry, overturning Betamax, would chill invention, with developers too fearful of potential copyright actions to innovate.But according to reports, the Court was also concerned that P2P companies were profiting from the illegal distribution of copyrighted material, inadvertently or not. The Justices questioned whether there was any way of establishing whether the companies had "induced" illegal file-sharing.A decision is not expected until June, but commentators suggest that the Supreme Court will uphold the earlier rulings, and leave it to Congress to legislate on the issue.The suit relates to a copyright infringement action brought by the entertainment industry against two file-sharing service providers – Streamcast Networks Inc., the company behind the Morpheus file-sharing software, and Grokster Ltd.The suit accused the two firms of providing the means whereby countless numbers of file-swappers illegally copy and share copyrighted music, software and films over the internet. But the claim was dismissed by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals last August on the grounds that, while the companies provide the software used by file-sharers to swap illegally copied digital files, the software can also be used for legitimate purposes.The Appeals Court was also hesitant to extend the scope of copyright law to cope with developing new technologies, as the entertainment industry was urging.Intel, which is not a party to the case, filed a brief with the court in support of the Betamax ruling, arguing that, while it wants its own intellectual property to be protected in law, technology companies must not be held responsible for what consumers do with their products.Other parties have pointed to Apple's iPod as a good example of a new technology that can be used for both legitimate and illegitimate purposes. But the music industry will attempt to draw a distinction between successes like the iPod and the P2P networks, because they argue that the business model of the latter is premised on infringement.
The European Commission’s decision to begin formal proceedings against social media platform X under the Digital Services Act (DSA) shows it “can’t wait” to start enforcing its content moderation provisions, an expert has said.
AI developers and copyright holders could get clarity on how their respective interests are to be balanced in the UK later this month – with the UK government pushing industry to agree a voluntary AI copyright code of practice whilst retaining the option to legislate.
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