Copyright Court Cases 04/18/12

        All this studying and examining documents about copyright law is sometimes very frustrating and boring for me, and I believe it is the same for my viewers: listening to what I have to say about gaining from those documents. Therefore, inspired by my history teacher Ms. Grzybowski, I have searched couple of famous court cases dealing with the copyright law in order to better understand the decisions made by the court and also to find some different opinions of the justices.
        The first Supreme Court case I came across was the "Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. v. Grokster, LTD." case. This particular case started in October, 2004 and the United States Supreme Court decided in June 27, 2005. The MGM Studios along with 28 other companies sued Grokster company for distributing free software that allows computer users to share electronic files through peer-to-peer networks. This software didn't have a problem if the users used the software in a righteous matter, but since the "recipients of respondents' software have mostly used them to share copyrighted music and video files without authorization" it became a lawsuit. During their oral argument, the Supreme Court justices were divided between the need to protect new technologies and the need to provide remedies against copyright infringement.
        Justice Souter delivered the opinion of the court saying, "The question is under what circumstances the distributor of a product capable of both lawful and unlawful use is liable for acts of copyright infringement by third parties using the product. We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmatives steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties."
        Justice Ginsburg, with the Chief Justice and Justice Kennedy, wrote the concurring. He said, "I concur in the Coutis decision, which vacates in full the judgment of the Court of Appeals... and write separately to clarify why I conclude that the Court of Appeals misperceived, and hence misapplied, our holding in Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc."
        It seemed that the opposing party of justices who do not think Grokster is to be guilty for the cause of copyright infringement due to the disagreement faced on the previous case of Sony Corporation v. Universal City Studios. Therefore, I would research about the case of Sony Corporation v. Universal City Studios. On the other hand, it was a great example to see the conflicts between our Chief justices and their reasons, which makes us, or at least me, think about our opinions on this case.