Of Grokster, Illegal File Sharing And Other Demons

We've all witnessed this week the entertainment industry's victory over the illegal file sharing phenomenon, validated through the Supreme Court's ruling in the "MGM vs. Grokster" case. We've listened to countless statements, saying just how important this decision is for the future of media content distribution.

However, we can't help but wonder, is it as important as the winning side boasts it to be? Will this ruling put a stop to the copyright infringement phenomenon? Not likely.

This lawsuit was all about Grokster's and StreamCast's active involvement in promoting the idea of piracy. However, they did not invent software piracy and file sharing. It's a very old practice that is not likely to disappear in the near future. Why? Well, come on, let's think about it. Isn't it cheaper to just open your file-sharing program (which, by the way, you've probably also downloaded for free) and get whatever content you're interested in? Yes, it's not legal, but there are so many people doing it, so why shouldn't you?

This is the kind of thinking the entertainment companies haven't taken into consideration.

"We won big" said Hilary Rosen, former CEO of the RIAA. And that might be the case. It was certainly a victory against a tangible entity, in this case two companies that developed file-sharing programs and made the mistake of promoting them as means to get copyrighted stuff for free.

Grokster and StreamCast thought that, according to the famous 1984 "Betamax" Court ruling, they were protected from liability. They were wrong. The court ruled that this case can't be associated to Betamax, because the two companies "made active steps" to encourage piracy.

However, as we all know, Grokster and Streamcast created just two programs. And come to think of it, you don't even need a file-sharing program to get copyright-infringing materials. If you borrow and copy your friend's original CD, that's illegal file sharing as well.

That's the point all the companies on the "winning" side seem to have missed. A court ruling won't change the way people think. The only solution is for the content distribution companies to sue every single user that downloads illegal materials. And that's too much, even for them.