You just infringed the trademark law because you mentioned "RI**". Beware, they'll be arresting you for that.

"The question is under what circumstances the distributor of a product capable of both lawful and unlawful use is liable for acts of copyright infringement by third parties using the product."

Remove "of copyright infringement" from that quote, and it's clear that if they continue this way soon they'll be sueing people for distributing any product "capable of both lawful and unlawful use". So I guess that means that makers of Stanley knives, glass bottles, housebricks, baseball bats and so on, along with the makers of cd-ripping software, video compression software, photocopiers, cameras and dual-deck cassette recorders better watch out.

In which case we'll all be living in mud huts.

(And hey, I'm sure you can do illegal things with mud too)...

The thing is that in the USA they will try and make DVD-RW's illegal for "potentially illegal uses" yet if they tried to do the same for firearms then the NRA would be able to smother the bill.

To get something banned/keep something unbanned, its all about the money

A British Guy living in the USA

I'm pretty sure I can manage to do a couple of reasonably illegal things with/to another person using only my body... Reynolds! You mustn't save my life ever, or you'll be an accessory!

It just goes to prove that the US Supreme Court is a collection of crusty old has-beens with no relevant outlook on modern life; the detritus of a morally bankrupt society (Or worse, criminals living in the pockets of "major interest groups"!). One is so sick he can hardly speak but still insists on keeping his job - can no one rid us of these turbulent ex-lawyers?

I am sorry, I did not vote for the bastard, or any of the Far, far wrong now in office. I am sorry. I don't like them either. I am so sorry.

I apologize.

And I am sorry.

Hunh?
..... but we don't vote for Supreme Court "Justices." ( end oxymoron alert)

William

And none of the current judges was appointed by the "far, far wrong" currently in office.

Are you refering to the current American administration? They are to the left of JFK <\harp music> and the closest thing to democratic party principals in washington. I do agree with you that they are "wrong" on many topics, mostly domestic, and that just about the only thing that they have right is foriegn policy. Pray for us, we may just get a good constitutional administration next time, but I'm not holding my breath.

i have only read this quickly. and i wonder how this will affect my job as a computer tech. what will happen to driver downloads, passing information, etc. im waiting for the students to download stuff and the college get fine. only a time will tell.

Sony ought to be one of the first companies to get sued. After all they make blank CDs that could be used for illegally copying music CDs.

Actually, thank goodness, the ruling did not reverse the 1984 Betamax ruling - The BBC seems to have mis-reported it somewhat in their summary.

the court said that that original standard [Betamax] still applied -- but that the non-infringing use shield wasn't enough to protect a company that actively induced or encouraged the use of its products for copyright infringement.

From ZDNet, and see also The Register.

In other words, in fact in my words, and I am no lawyer - Apple can't be sued for making the ipod, but could be sued for trying to make money, more sales, by promoting or encouraging infringing use. Hence those file-sharing companies that advertised the possiblities of infringement now have to take responsibility for encouraging it directly.

There will be ambiguities as to what defines "actively inducing or encouraging" but the Supreme Court likes to leave that to the lower court to decide. That's where it could get mucky.

This report here http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4629761.stm seems to suggest that iPod etc will only be illegal if marketed for illegal use. Difficult to prove and doubtless conditions of use iTunes etc. have prohibition for such use anyway.

If my memory serves (and its a bit patchy) did they not try all this when the cassette tape came out ("home recording is killing music") all those nights I sat in the attic, recording the top 40 on my mono tape recorder, hiding in fear lest I be caught....) ;-)

and then with the video, cd etc.... I just bought a DVD recorder for my PC last week, and i have already put most of my music collection on a few blank dvd's (ebay here I come) so I guess its back to the atic then...

:-)

I dont think this will make any difference to us at all, save give the tabloids something to print.

oh...

you remember that housewife that was nabbed for her daughters downloading? and a 5 grand fine? there is a DJ I know had his laptop siezed last week, and he had over 120 GB of MP3's on it...

thats him screwed then.

Personally, I like the Canadian model.

First off, you are allowed to copy material that you own for your personal use. So I could legally rip one of my DVDs onto my hard drive, circumventing copy protection, without breaking the law.

Second, recognizing that people will copy music, we pay a small fee with every blank CD or MP3 player, which is divvied up among all artists based on Canadian sales. You are allowed to copy music, but not to distribute it. So downloading is OK, but uploading isn't.

I think its more to do with the active promoting of copyright infringment, such as Napsters entire business model revolving around it, or more specifically in this case, grokster giving 'illegal' content the explicit nod in comments i bet they wish the supreme court hadn't seen.

Does this mean that gun and knife manufacturers can be held responsible for what owners of their products do with them?


Thought not....

Just noticed this wonderful tag (courtesy of the big Micro$oft) at the bottom of a hotmail message I received

"Use MSN Messenger to send music and pics to your friends http://messenger.msn.co.uk "

How many people do you know who send uncopyrighted music. This has got to be incitement to piracy :)