GROKSTER AND THE FUTURE OF PEER-TO-PEER FILE SHARING

摘要

The release of the US Supreme Court's Grokster decision on June 27, 2005, generated, as expected, an avalanche of breathless headlines proclaiming victory for the recording industry and a "shutting the tap" of music on peer-to-peer file sharing systems. While the highest court in the United States did indeed unanimously rule that two file-sharing services-Grokster and Streamcast-can be sued for actively encouraging copyright infringement by their users, the decision is not the clear-cut win that its supporters suggest. The latest chapter in the ongoing battle between the recording industry and peer-to-peer file sharing originated from the Napster fallout. Napster burst onto the scene in the late 1990s by linking users in a manner that enabled them to easily transfer music files from one computer to another without prior authorization. The recording industry reacted to the service with alarm, quickly suing it on copyright infringement grounds.