The Pirate Bay, Grokster and Google

Abstract:     
The Pirate Bay. Three simple words. Such strong reactions. Proponents point to a vibrant forum for distributing files. Critics lament the massive pirating of copyrighted works.

The Swedish district court recently found The Pirate Bay (TPB) guilty of making copyrighted works available. This article explores the consequences of this decision. It first explains the technology underlying TPB and provides an overview of the website. It then analyzes the court’s opinion. Next, it applies the opinion’s reasoning to the Google search engine and the activities at issue in MGM v. Grokster.

The article finds that Google would potentially be liable and Grokster would likely be liable under the analysis of the TPB opinion. It concludes that the court’s broad views of complicity could, if adopted, have powerful effects in future cases.

Keywords: The Pirate Bay, Google, Grokster, copyright, file-sharing, P2P, BitTorrent, secondary liability, piracy, infringement

JEL Classifications: K10, K40, K42, O30, O33, O34

Working Paper Series