ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline
Volume 12, Number 89
September 29, 2003

In This Issue: MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd. - libraries join amicus brief

ALA and the other four major U.S. library associations joined in filing an amici curiae (friends of the court) brief on September 26 in the case of MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd., which is on appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.  The ACLU took the lead in writing the brief in support of the defendants, the companies Grokster and Morpheus which offer peer-to-peer file-trading software. 
 
The record companies and movie studios sued the companies for contributory infringement and vicarious liability.  A U.S. district court in California applied the Ninth Circuit's holdings in its decision in the Napster case to the facts here, and concluded that Grokster and Morpheus could not be held secondarily liable for the infringements of users of their software.  The district court also relied on the ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court in the Sony (Betamax) case in 1984 when it held that the makers of the VCR should not be held liable for copyright infringement simply because the device could be used for infringing purposes.  The district court found that it was undisputed that there are substantial non-infringing uses for the file-sharing software, such as to share public domain materials and government documents.  
 
The brief pointed out that the amici do not support the wrongful sharing of copyrighted materials.  Instead, we believe the Supreme Court ruled correctly in the Sony/Betamax case. The court in that case created fair and practical rules which, if overturned, would as a practical matter give the entertainment industry a veto power over the development of innovative products and services.  We argue that free speech and the public interest are best served by rules that allow new and innovative mediums of communication to develop and flourish. 
 
The lower court decision and all the briefs that have been filed to date can be found at the Electronic Frontier Foundation web site:
http://www.eff.org/IP/P2P/MGM_v_Grokster/ 



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ALA Washington Office, 1301 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Suite 403, Washington, D.C. 20004-1701; phone: 202.628.8410 or 800.941.8478 toll-free; fax: 202.628.8419; e-mail: alawash@alawash.org; Web site: http://www.ala.org/washoff.  Executive Director: Emily Sheketoff. Office of Government Relations: Lynne Bradley, Director; Camille Bowman, Mary Costabile, Don Essex, Patrice McDermott and Miriam Nisbet. Office for Information Technology Policy: Rick Weingarten, Director; Kathy Mitchell, Carrie Russell. ALAWON Editor: Bernadette Murphy.