File-sharing issue lands in court again

Found on Mercury News on Wednesday, 04 February 2004
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Hollywood attorneys tried to persuade a three-judge panel to overturn a lower court's ruling that the Grokster and Morpheus file-sharing services are not responsible for copyright violations committed by people who use their software to illegally trade music and movies. But a skeptical 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel pressed the lawyers to defend their contention that file-sharing services should be stripped of the protections afforded technological innovation by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Judge Sidney R. Thomas, regarded as among the most technologically astute of the 9th Circuit judges, noted that users of the file-swapping networks could continue to trade files, even if Morpheus and Grokster were shut down immediately.

Meanwhile, Carey Ramos, a New York attorney representing songwriters, received a stern rebuke from Noonan to "curtail that use of abusive language," when he began to heatedly criticize the services as "trafficking in pirated goods."

Here's another quote from Judge Noonan: "Let me say what I think your problem is. You can use these harsh terms, but you are dealing with something new, and the question is, does the statutory monopoly that Congress has given you reach out to that something new. And that's a very debatable question. You don't solve it by calling it 'theft.' You have to show why this court should extend a statutory monopoly to cover the new thing. That's your problem. Address that if you would. And curtail the use of abusive language."