RIAA calls time on P2Pers

Found on The Register on Thursday, 15 September 2005
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The Recording Industry Ass. of America (RIAA) has told seven P2P software companies to get with the programme - or face the consequences.

The organisation, infamous for the thousands of lawsuits it has issued against alleged file-sharers, said it has asked the firms to shut down their networks or implement RIAA-approved anti-piracy measures.

The verdict reversed judgements made at the District Court and Court of Appeal levels, which were founded on the precedent established in a landmark case brought in the 1980s by the movie industry against Sony. Back then, the Japanese giant prevailed, by showing its video recorders had plenty of uses beyond illegally copying movies. This time round, the P2Pers made the same claims, but the Supreme Court maintained that there were substantial differences between the two cases, so the Sony precedent does not apply.

The case now returns to the lower court, which must now re-consider the movie industry's complaint against Grokster and StreamCast in the light of the Supremes' decision.

Now I might be wrong, but the case returned to the lower court; in my opinion, this means there is no final decision yet. So, the industry can't really threaten P2P companies with legal consquences. Even if the court rules in favor of the industry... they cannot do anything when the P2P application is open source or the company is based outside the US.