Grokster and Morpheus win lawsuit, file-swapping tools are legal

kamikazee and onlinetracker used our news submit to tell us that file sharing networks Grokster and Morpheus have won a lawsuit from the music and move industry. The judge declared that both software applications only offer a service to users and can also be used for legal activities. The judge compared it to video recorders, also these can be and are used for infringement of copyrights, but also serve legal purposes.

Although this case is a step in the right direction, the movie industry and record industry will likely appeal against the ruling. Grokster and Morpheus are both decentralized file sharing networks, so this could open the way for a legal status of KaZaA and Gnutella.

Defendants distribute and support software, the users of which can and do choose to employ it for both lawful and unlawful ends," Wilson wrote in his opinion, released Friday. "Grokster and StreamCast 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." The ruling is the second major setback to date to the entertainment industry's efforts to keep a tight rein on online file-swapping, following a similiar decision in the Netherlands last year that found that Kazaa was not liable for its users' copyright infringements. If upheld, the decision could lead artists, record labels and movie studios to cast new legal strategies that they have until now been reluctant to try, including bringing lawsuits against individuals who copy unauthorized works over Napster-like networks.

This ruling is a step in the right direction. Hopefully this becomes a tendency and also 321 Studios will have a judge that finally understands the evolution of technology, something that should not be stopped by the entertainment industry, but should be embraced and seen as a new challenge. Read the entire story here.

Source: Cnet.com