Surviving Grokster: Innovation and the Future of Peer-to-Peer

Abstract:     
This article considers some of the emerging technology issues following the recent United States Supreme Court decision in MGM v. Grokster. This article first considers the active inducement standard for secondary copyright liability announced by the Court against the backdrop of some current technology controversies. Secondly, having reviewed the concurring Opinions of Justices Ginsburg and Breyer, this article questions whether a reformulation of the "capable of substantial non-infringing" use standard announced by the Supreme Court in Sony-Betamax is necessary in light of the emergent properties of digital networked products. This article concludes with some more general observations on the future of peer-to-peer technology.

Keywords: Copyright, Grokster, Peer-to-Peer, Substantial Non-infringing Use, Inducement, Sony

Accepted Paper Series