Rule of Law

Ruling in favor if MGM Studios in the case of Grokster v. MGM Studios, the Supreme court set a new precedent for all cases in the rulings of peer-to-peer sharing on the internet in the fact of copyrighted material. It is now completely as illegal to go buy “Soul Plane”, copy it onto your hard-drive, burn out 15 copies and sell them on the corner as it is to upload them onto a Limewire server or a Napster server or a PirateBay server and distribute it worldwide to anyone who wants to take the time to download it for a free and potentially steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from the publishers of that film. Giving within the family is still legally allowable, and sites have been able to get around the copyright barrier by setting themselves up with database servers overseas and outside of the jurisdiction of the United States and as “.org” sites in order to not be held accountable as they would be if they were “.com” or “.net” domains. It’s a matter of time until other governments allow the United States to enter their internet and persecute these criminals but until then it’s the ignorant and inanely stupid that load onto American servers with American domains and get caught by American officials.

Reasoning of the Court

In Grokster v. MGM Studios, the district and appellate courts ruled against MGM Studios and in favor of Grokster because of the precedent of the Sony v. Universal Studios case in 1984 where Sony was found innocent from copyright infringement due to selling a product that could knowingly be used to record copyrighted material for personal use by the consumer; Sony knew this to be a unwanted side effect of the product but it wasn’t enough to warrant copyright infringement on behalf of Sony. Due to this the lower cases considered P2P (peer-to-peer file sharing via servers on the internet) of the same effect and ruled in favor of the company providing the material to conduct this business. The Supreme Court had noted that unlike Sony in 1984 whose product was for viewing of copyrighted material purchased on behalf of the user; Grokster’s software was made specifically for P2P and was exclusively for sharing files and products via servers on the internet, and specifically for sharing copyrighted and expensive material from one person in New York to someone in Hong Kong. Because of this brash difference in the basis of the companies and their product, Grokster was blatantly advertising itself as a “Napster alternative” in that it would get you the song or movie and what not that you wanted from someone you would never meet for a cost of next to nothing with no payment made towards the original producer of that material. The Supreme Court found this in violation of the Copyright Act and held Grokster and it’s associates fully responsible for all of the copyrighted material infringed upon on their servers using their software. This set a new precedent for copyrighted material and P2P software and servers on the internet, at least those based within the United States where jurisdiction is still held. This has helped bring down malicious software from its free roaming unobstructed reigns to at least stem the tide of P2P which is also a cesspool for viruses and Trojans on top of being a music and movie database from which to download.

Decision of the Court

In the Supreme Court Case Grokster v. MGM Studios the decision of the courts was in favor of MGM studios. Grokster had quoted the earlier case of 1984 landmark decision in the Sony v. Universal city Studios case where Sony had provided betamaster software so consumers could copy their own videos for safekeeping or sharing with the family. The difference in the cases is that Sony didn’t know what it’s users had actually been using the software to do, nor had any idea of what information was being shared, they only provided the software. Grokster on the other hand had actively given the software, actively been monitoring the servers with which the information was being stored, and had even labeled themselves as “Napster alternatives.” Therefore the courts had found negligence on behalf of Grokster and found them guilty. It appears that the court had been found 9-0 with two concurring notions delivered by Justice Ginsburg and Justice Breyer. Both giving elongated statements on different aspects of the case both focusing on the fact that Grokster unlike Sony which it attempted to hide behind had been negligent and even promoted the copyrighting of the material. Justice Ginsburg stated, “ I concur in the Court’s decision, which vacates in full the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, ante, at 24, and write separately to clarify why I conclude that the Court of Appeals misperceived, and hence misapplied, our holding in Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417 (1984). There is here at least a “genuine issue as to [a] material fact,” Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 56(c), on the liability of Grokster or StreamCast, not only for actively inducing copyright infringement, but also or alternatively, based on the distribution of their software products, for contributory copyright infringement. On neither score was summary judgment for Grokster and StreamCast warranted.” Showing that the warrants for Sony were in the slightest something of tangible nature that Sony did not know nor perpetuate was happening, unlike Grokster. Justice Breyer states, “I agree with the Court that the distributor of a dual-use technology may be liable for the infringing activities of third parties where he or she actively seeks to advance the infringement. Ante, at 1. I further agree that, in light of our holding today, we need not now “revisit” Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417 (1984). Ante, at 17. Other Members of the Court, however, take up the Sony question: whether Grokster’s product is “capable of ‘substantial’ or ‘commercially significant’ noninfringing uses.” Ante, at 1 (Ginsburg, J., concurring) (quoting Sony, supra, at 442). And they answer that question by stating that the Court of Appeals was wrong when it granted summary judgment on the issue in Grokster’s favor. Ante, at 4. I write to explain why I disagree with them on this matter.” Where he states that there wasn’t a necessity to revisit the Sony v. Universal Studios case based upon the relevance it had doing with the Grokster v. MGM Studios case as they are of different natures due specifically to the extreme changes in technology between the times of the cases.

Issues of the Case

Copyright infringement is a very serious matter, especially more so in the field of audio with which I plan to make my living. In MGM Studios v. Grokster, the facts of the case are as follows. Grokster was a company that distributed software and products that elicited the peer-to-peer and ensured it would thrive (peer-to-peer being file sharing with computers that have access to the internet without access to the actual computer, just being able to access its files even without the permission of the computer user) in the established internet world. Among these files shared in the peer-to-peer network was expressly stated copyrighted material that was transferred with the knowledge of Grokster. The transfer of this copyrighted material without the written expressed statement from MGM Studios to do so was perceived as copyright infringement on behalf of Grokster as they blatantly knew about the illegal sharing of the material. Grokster countered with they not only didn’t know what material was being transferred, only that they were providing the product with which people could transfer files on an established peer-to-peer server; But also that the transfer over the internet could not be claimed as copyright infringement as it is outside of the jurisdiction of the US Government and non-negotiable as to who owns the materials on hand. The opinion is as follows “We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties.” – Supreme Court Justice Souter.

Illicit

Money laundering at first sounds like going out and washing your bills so you can keep them crisp and fresh in your wallet, right? In a manner of words that’s exactly what is done except the money you start with has been gained illegally and is “washed” by going through purchasing and reselling anything from other illegal gains, legal gains, cashier’s checks, money orders, bank account transfers, electronic transfers, property, titles, almost anything can be bought and sold in a manner of ways to “clean” money. Most of the time syndicates, mob families and organized crime use money laundering as a way to legally use their ill gotten gains, and as shown by the movie “Illicit” by National Geographic money laundering can be achieved by almost anyone and is done worldwide with bank accounts on a huge scale. For example one of the main reasons Scarface was captured and booked officially was on top of tax evasion, money laundering. Just last month 44 officials and citizens in New Jersey were arrested for large scale money laundering for a mob family. Now we all know how crooked and corrupt the unions in New Jersey are but the fact that the officials would stoop to a level past accepting bribes onto actively creating a money launderers safe paradise is something straight out of a Godfather movie to me. Something that I would initially take at face value for being a non-threatening deal, spawning from selling copies or counterfeit products and laundered so it can be used to influence political officials from France, Britain, even America makes it a much larger deal and a much larger problem.

Spam

As you open your Gmail accounts once a week you’ll notice along the left side of your tool bar your inbox, starred mail, sent mail and so on. As you move down you’ll see a “more” drop down menu, in there you’ll notice a “spam” folder. Gmail along with many other email providers such as Yahoo and EarthLink have anti-spam filters in place to protect you from the bulk if not 100% of these spam threats that were a major inconvenience less than 5 years ago. Spam operations are akin to that of shooting bullets into a metropolis city. There is obviously an abundance of room for which the bullets or spam to fly by un-harming and an annoyance at best but you will hit someone with a bullet as you will hit a gullible person who does not deserve to be solicited with a spam email. Responding to these can result in anything from petty theft to identity theft. These operations clutter your email box and are against the law as they are there to achieve nothing except to scam and steal from people. It is extremely dangerous to let these companies and businesses to run unhindered as they continue to “hit and miss” on the populace and make a living from stealing essentially from innocent people who may not be to common sense savvy. Although the internet’s “filters” have become much more powerful and common nowadays and block most of everything spam can still get through and open the door to extremely volatile viruses and even infecting your computer to become a remote accessed server to email out the spam itself effectively creating your computer an accomplice.

Landlord's Rights

In the movie “Pacific Heights” the landlords were undeniably not at fault in the fact that the tenant not only walked onto the premise with no true legal rights to do so, he had not fulfilled his contractual obligation in paying a security deposit and his first month’s rent. Immediately the landlord should have evicted the tenant under the rights of the contract after a single notification to the tenant. On top of that fact the tenant had changed the locks without notifying the landlord and was causing unreasonable amounts of noise and disturbance among the other tenants. It is completely within the landlords rights (unless contractually written in the agreement written and signed upon by both parties before moving in) that with one notice to the tenant the security deposit can be either refunded or withheld and the tenant evicted at the landlords leisure. In “Pacific Heights” the tenant broke multiple non contractual laws as well as disturbing the peace within the establishment, not paying his month’s rent, not paying his security deposit, trespassing at the beginning of the movie, changing locks without notification to the landlord, and creating unrest among the other tenants and the landlord by notifying the police due to a minor inconvenience that could be talked out civilly between two individuals or two parties. This was only within the first 45 minutes of the movie that we had witnessed, not counting possibly multiple other things law and contract breaking by this unruly and unreasoning tenant.