P2P Networks Score Legal Victory Against Studios
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File-sharing applications Morpheus and Grokster were claiming legal victory after a US court said it was not responsible for protecting the copyrights of material swapped on its person-to-person network.
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p2pnet.net News:- p2pnet.net News:- The entertainment industry - Hollywood, for short - is calling for the US Supreme Court to overturn the Grokster / Morpheus ruling that says p2p networks aren&#39;t liable for alleged copyright violations committed by users
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A federal court rules that the operators of TorrentSpy destroyed evidence in a copyright case against them.
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The U.S. Supreme Court has set March 29 as the date for oral arguments on whether companies providing peer-to-peer file trading software should be held responsible for copyright infringement committed by users of their products. The arguments are part of a long-playing case pitting a cadre of entertainment industry players against distributors of the Grokster and Morpheus file trading software. The p-to-p companies have already won in district court and again last August when the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Grokster, Morpheus distributor StreamCast Networks, and a site operated by StreamCast called Musiccity.com were not liable for copyright violations by their users. The entertainment companies, led by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), decided to appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, saying there are seminal issues at stake. The Supreme Court is expected to issue an opinion by the end of July.
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(InfoWorld) - One of the last of the popular P-to-P (peer-to-peer) music sharing sites has been defeated, with eDonkeyâs agreement to settle its copyright infringement case with the record industry. In documents filed with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on Monday, eDonkey founders and parent company MetaMachine Inc. said theyâll pay US$30 million to record companies to settle the case. They also agreed to refrain from conducting any further business that might involve copying, distributing or otherwise infringing copyrighted works. The settlement follows just more than a month after Sharman Networks Ltd., developer of the file-sharing software Kazaa, said it would pay the entertainment industry $100 million to settle similar lawsuits. Other file-sharing companies to succumb include Grokster Ltd., which shut down last year after losing a case in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. The eDonkey Web site now features a statement, similar to one on the Grokster site, informing visitors that illegal downloaders can be prosecuted and ominously warning visitors that they arenât anonymous by displaying and claiming to log their IP address. The eDonkey settlement will be paid to Arista Records LLC, Atlantic Recording Corp., Capitol Records Inc., Elektra Entertainment Group Inc., Sony BMG Music Entertainment and UMG Recordings Inc. Lime Wire LLC is one of few the remaining popular file-sharing software companies although in August a group of record companies filed a suit against it in the U.S. asking for damages that could amount to as much as $476 million. Late last year, eDonkeyâs founder predicted the demise of the file-sharing industry. During a speech in front of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, he warned that U.S. P-to-P companies would all cease to exist because they would lack the resources to defend themselves against the record companies under the ruling he characterized as vague in the Grokster suit. The record companies and movie studios have spent the last couple years carrying out attacks against the creators of file-sharing software, contending they should be held liable for copyright infringement by their users. The file-sharing software developers have largely failed in their arguments that they warn users not to illegally transfer materials and so shouldn't be held responsible for how people use their products. REFERENCES: Kazaa settles with record industry, Jul. 27, 2006Grokster shuttered in court settlement, Nov. 7, 2005US P-to-P companies will disappear, executive says, Sep. 30, 2005
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Sharman Networks, parent company of the peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing software Kazaa, is rejoicing at the US court ruling that found two similar P2P programs, Grokster and Morpheus, do not violate US copyright law. However, the company concedes that the ...
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The MPAA is arguing not that the P2P networks are at fault, but that the operators of the servers are because they know what is stored on them.
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Hollywood movie studios have settled a copyright lawsuit against a Web site operator they say had helped people find pirated copies of films for download.
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The music industry has fired the first shot in its legal battle with internet file sharers after winning a court order forcing internet service providers to hand over
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The real question is whether the movie industry, unlike the recording industry, can provide an answer to P2P that is as convenient and valuable to users.
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The entertainment industry asks the Supreme Court to reverse the Grokster decision, which held that peer-to-peer networks are not liable for copyright abuses of their users. By Michael Grebb.
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A federal appeals court has struck a blow to the entertainment industry's quest to shut down file sharing networks, affirming a lower court's decision that companies are not violating copyright laws simply because users are trading music and movies. Defendants Grokster, StreamCast and Sharman Networks will be allowed to continue distributing their software.
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p2pnet.net News:- Yesterday, the major movie studios turned their MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) loose on BitTorrent and eDonkey p2p networks, claiming the effort is necessary to bring file-sharing under control.
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(InfoWorld) - In another blow to peer-to-peer file sharing, a U.S. federal judge ruled on Wednesday that the Morpheus software program encouraged users to infringe upon copyrighted works. StreamCast Networks, the owner of Morpheus, "cannot seriously argue that it did not know that the popular music and movies traded on its network were copyrighted," wrote U.S. district judge Stephen V. Wilson. The ruling is another win for record and film companies, which sought an injunction against distribution of the file-sharing software in the suit, filed in 2001. StreamCast continued to fight after two other companies named in the suit, Grokster and Sharman Networks, the company behind the Kazaa file-sharing client,Â reach settlementsÂ with the entertainment industry. StreamCast said it could consider appealing, saying the software has legal uses. "We do not believe that StreamCast encouraged users to infringe on copyrighted works, and the company never intended to do so," the company said in a statement. File-sharing software companies have been battered by a string of successful legal suits by the entertainment industry. In June 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court found that both StreamCast andÂ Grokster could be held liableÂ for copyright infringements by users. Earlier this month, MetaMachine, which distributed the eDonkey client software,Â settled a copy infringement caseÂ with the record industry for $30 million. Just weeks prior, Sharman Networks agreed to pay $100 million to end outstanding lawsuits with the entertainment industry. Major record companies and movies studios have used aggressive legal tactics against illegal file sharing, suing both software companies and individual users, in an effort to halt falling revenues attributed to piracy.ADVERTISEMENTMAKE SOA REAL WITH IBM WEBSPHERE PODCASTStreamline processes and maximize efficiency within a proven service oriented architecture. Take back control of your business processes with IBM WebSphere.
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In a judicial blow to the entertainment industry, a federal appeals court ruled that makers of two leading file-sharing programs are not legally liable for the songs, movies and other copyright works their users swap online.
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Hollywood movie studios, through the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), have today sued scores of operators of computer servers that help relay digitised movie files across online file-sharing networks.
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We knew P2P would get its day in court, but did we think it would go this far? The key issue to be decided is whether file-sharing networks should be held responsible when their users copy works protected by copyright without permission.