A federal judge ruled that companies providing peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing software cannot be held liable for copyright infringement by users of the software. Peer-to-Peer File-Sharing programs enables users to share any digital file from their own hard disk (including images, audio, video, reports, documents, etc.)

The ruling is a striking victory for the makers of the Morpheus and Grokster software products. In the court's words: "Grokster and Streamcast [the company that provides Morpheus software] are not significantly different from companies that sell home video recorders or copy machines, both of which can be and are used to infringe copyrights."

"We believe the case is about technology, not piracy, and today the court agreed, making it clear that technology companies are not responsible for every misuse of the tools they make," noted Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Senior Intellectual Property Attorney Fred von Lohmann. "Today's ruling reaffirms the Supreme Court's landmark decision in the Sony Betamax case."

"Hollywood sought to control what innovators can make available to consumers," added EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn. "This ruling makes clear that technology companies can provide general purpose tools without fear of copyright liability."

"Over 61 million Americans use peer-to-peer systems -- more than voted for our President," added EFF Executive Director Shari Steele. "It's time we found a way to ensure that artists get paid without killing off this tremendous new technology." >from *Win for Makers of Morpheus Peer-to-Peer Software! Court Rejects Entertainment Industry Copyright Claims*. April 25, 2003

related context
> the free network project: freedom of communication. november 5, 2002
> CodeCon 2002: p2p and cripto programming. february 21, 2002
> napster alternatives. august 10, 2001
> distributed computing projects @home. december 18, 2000
> name spaces in peer-to-peer infrastructure. november 16, 2000
> file sharing integrated with instant messaging . august 9, 2000

imago
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