Hopeful Notions
Posted in General 5 years, 4 months ago.
I was hoping for a bit of a response to my supreme decision entry but even still, I’m not going to just let it die. As you know, the Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday in the case and unfortunately the transcripts of such hearings are typically not available to the public until a ruling is made. Thankfully, I had some time to gather a few resources which I feel give a solid representation of what occurred.
Timothy K. Armstrong, a Harvard Law Professor, stated that “the argument went a little better for Grokster than [he] would have expected it to.” He provides solid details about the questions asked by the Justices but one very interesting comment comes in regards to CD “ripping.”
They [MGM] said that at the time the iPod was invented, it was clear that there were many perfectly lawful uses for it, such as ripping one’s own CD and storing it in the iPod. This was a very interesting point for them to make, not least because I would wager that there are a substantial number of people on MGM’s side of the case who don’t think that example is one bit legal. But they’ve now conceded the contrary in open court, so if they actually win this case they’ll be barred from challenging “ripping” in the future under the doctrine of judicial estoppel.
Although not directly related to this case, keep in mind that MGM in this case is only a figure head, representing the movie, the music, and other entertainment industries. In addition to Grokster’s “better than believed” arguments, Justices Scalia, Breyer and Souter seemed uneasy about the impact a revision to the BetaMax case could have on potential inventors. According to SCOTUSblog:
Scalia wondered aloud “how much time you get [as a designer] to bring up the lawful use so it outweighs the unlawful use,” and thus copyright liability is averted. Verrilli [counsel representing MGM] said inventors would not have “absolute certainty” that they could avoid liability.
Souter said: “The question is: how do we know in advance that we can give the inventor — that is, the developer — the confidence to go ahead? How do we avoid the foregone conclusion that the iPod developer is going to lose his shirt” in copyright damages?
It makes perfect sense, if an inventor can not be certain that his invention will be used for 100% non-infringing application then he/she will choose not to invent for fear of infringement liability. As you can see, this case is highly complicated but the implications are widespread. The court is likely to make a ruling later this spring and hopefully they will see the damage a revision of the BetaMax ruling will have on technology.
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March 30th, 2005 at 6:17 pm
Yay law! Maybe you should rethink your opinion of law school and become a champion of technology… just a thought. Either way, I’m glad to see you’re rilled up about injustice. But, as business students shouldn’t we be defending the big corporations? .. Nah, didn’t think so:)