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September 13, 2005, 10:44 AM ET
After Grokster, Taking Peer-to-Peer’s Pulse
The entertainment industry was quick to claim victory after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. v. Grokster Ltd., which found that peer-to-peer networks could be held liable for inducing copyright violations. But will that ruling make any noticeable impact on the file-sharing landscape?
It’s already done so, says Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America, who joined a panel discussion today at the fifth annual Future of Music Policy Summit, held at George Washington University. "There’s been an unbelievable upheaval in terms of peer-to-peer companies changing their business models, from illegit to legit," he said. He pointed out that iMesh, a network popular with song swappers, is remaking itself, as did Napster, as a pay-to-play service.
But corporate repackagings like iMesh’s are likely to be Pyrrhic victories, said the always-quotable Siva Vaidhyanathan, an assistant professor of communication at New York University. Persuading a few underground peer-to-peer networks to alter their practices won’t stop an impending "digital-rights-management revolt," he argued: "What companies do is different from what consumers do. The entertainment industry has been whacking moles for six years now. They’ve hit every mole they’ve whacked at, and it hasn’t made a bit of difference."
The Grokster decision won’t stop new peer-to-peer networks from popping up, said Fred von Lohmann, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has opposed the entertainment industry in court. Many of the file-swapping networks now popular with college students, he said, were started by lone programmers working in their spare time, and the decision is unlikely to dissuade them from tinkering. "You can still imagine starting a peer-to-peer company today," Mr. von Lohmann said, "as long as you pay close attention to what the Supreme Court told you not to do."
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