Brave New World: The Supreme Court Kills Grokster
By Jordan Tishler
We win! The case has been ongoing for years. Unless you're living under a rock, as I found out today that my assistant is, you can't have missed it. The ruling this week by the United States Supreme Court is of vital importance to all music lovers, movie fanatics, software users, and citizens. Heck, it's even important to those of us involved in music for a living. In fact, it's huge!
This is huge because, regardless of how you feel about the big guys, the major labels like Warner or Sony, every single song has a writer who is not a big guy. They, like you and I, are hard working, talented blokes trying to buy a better guitar or feed their family. Now I'm not arguing against downloaded music, nor technological change. God knows, we use a lot of technology here in the studio. No, I'm arguing that technology is no excuse for stealing, especially from hard working stiffs who work hard to bring good things like music or movies to the world. Whether you look at it from a moral or a "what does this get me" point of view, undermining creative peoples' ability to make a living being creative is bad business. Where would we all be if Lennon, Dylan, and Springsteen, had never written because they were too busy at Wendy's?
Let's recap the events that make this Supreme Court ruling so momentous: In the 90's there were these dumbasses who started a company called Napster. This is not the Napster that exists today, the name was sold to BMG records and is a great example of how people can unleash great evil on the world and still come out multi-millionaires. Napster's scheme involved promoting illegal music sharing by use of client software and a central server. When they got dinged, it was because they were deemed to be participating in the illegal activity.
Along came the next dumbass, not content to learn a lesson from the damage caused by Napster, who invented peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing. They figured that since Napster got into trouble by aiding in the sharing process, they'd just work out the software to keep themselves out of the loop. Now everyone is a "server" and the whole thing is untouchable. Right?
Wrong. Thankfully for Bob Dylan, you and me, the Supreme Court decided to protect our Intellectual Property. Never thought you'd have the word "intellectual" applied to you? Well, every time you write a song, that's really what you've got. The idea of the song: the copyright. In the end, that's really all you've got, and it's the part for which you get paid. So the SC was really protecting our right to eat! This is the essence of what the Supreme Court said this week: companies can't hide behind the illusion (or delusion) that they have no idea how people use their product when it is clear to any reasonable person that the main use is illegal. Grokster and, by extension, other P2P providers are to be held responsible for the illegal uses their software aids and encourages.
Here's what I find tantalizing: It seems to me that this ruling may go far beyond its intended scope, like the 25th amendment, in ways that no one can predict. We'll have to wait and see. Just for kicks, consider: for years the National Rifle Association has perpetrated the myth that "guns don't kill people, people kill people." Are Colt, Smith & Wesson, et al. now accountable for illegal shootings or aggravated assault? I sure hope so! How about Ford Motor Vehicles? Are they responsible if someone does a "hit and run" using an Explorer? Hmmm. Maybe that's a stretch. It makes me glad not to be a lawyer, although, interestingly, they always seem to get paid regardless of whether justice prevails. In any case, it's a Brave New Day - perhaps we'll get a new era of corporate responsibility. That'd be overdue.
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