Grokster talk

Analyses of the Supreme Court's ruling in the Grokster case are getting too plentiful to count. Here are a few that caught my attention:

Salon's Siva Vaidhyanathan describes the ruling as "a middle-ground decision about a territory that has no middle ground." In fact, it muddles the issue so much that even the Big G is theoretically vulnerable: "If anyone infringes, it's Google: The company caches millions of Web pages without permission (again, giving copyright holders the option of protesting). And soon it will offer millions of copyrighted books in electronic form without payment or permission. How would Google fare in a post-Grokster world? The publishing industry no doubt wonders. And it just might sue to find out."

Over at Slate, Tim Wu points out how the high court's decision reflects the justices' recent "Miss Manners" approach to jurisprudence: "be polite and ask nicely, and you'd be surprised what can be done. ... The P2P companies were loud scofflaws, foreigners, and college students who blatantly encouraged illegal acts. KaZaA's successor by contrast, Apple's iTunes, may ultimately pose a greater threat to the recording industry, but it operates in a respectable way. Steve Jobs is a rebel with manners. And that has made all the difference."

Copyright attorney William Patry opines that the justices punted on the key questions because, despite their "unanimous" ruling, they couldn't actually agree on what to do.

Former RIAA CEO Hilary Rosen: "[K]nowing we were right legally really still isn't the same thing as being right in the real world. We had that euphoria with the first Napster decision. I hope my former colleagues remember that. ... The euphoria of this decision does not and should not change the need for the entertainment industry to push foward and embrace these new distribution systems."

Mike Godwin wrote a great -- and relatively concise -- summary with commentary for Reason: "What's certain is that in the near term it will be harder, given the superficial magnitude of its victory in MGM v. Grokster, for the content industries to ask for more legislation to protect them from those awful file-traders, who certainly include some high percentage of the folks reading this column. That's probably a good thing. It's also likely that the case itself, now remanded to a lower court for more factfinding, will result in further questions that appeals courts, including perhaps the Supreme Court, will need to answer."