MGM v. Grokster: Report From the Court
A Few Notes from the Grokster Argument
Law student Timothy Armstrong recounts his impression of the arguments before the Supreme Court today.
[MGM asserts that] Grokster should be held accountable because they intentionally founded a business based expressly on encouraging infringement of copyright. It does not matter, in MGM's view, whether the infringing use of Grokster's system constitutes 90% or 10% of the total: because its whole business plan is geared around using the promise of infringing content to lure customers, it should be liable.
Building a business based on the anticipated illegal behavior of customers may be cynical, but I can't see that it should be illegal. If MGM wants to hold companies accountable for this, it should target the advertisers that support Grokster...such as fellow petitioner Twentieth Century Fox.
