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Grokster Wins Peer-to-Peer Battle

By Samuel B. Fineman
September 08, 2004

In what is poised to spark a debate of significant economic impact for the entertainment industry in the United States Supreme Court, a unanimous panel of the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals recently ruled that Grokster, Ltd. and StreamCast Networks, Inc. ' distributors of the Morpheus program ' will live another day, as they do not infringe film and music copyrights by facilitating file-sharing over the Internet.

A coalition of movie studios and record companies had sued the defendants in an attempt to shut down the trading of pirated content facilitated by the Morpheus program in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer v. Grokster, No. 03-55894, No. 03-55901, No. 03-56236, 2004 U.S. App. LEXIS 17471 (9th Cir., Aug. 19, 2004).

The three-judge panel, led by Judge Sidney Thomas, flatly rejected the film industry's argument and ruled that the suit fails two legal tests used to determine liability for copyright infringement.

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