The cast of the ongoing peer-to-peer drama
Published: 28 Jun 2005 18:10 BST
The Supreme Court's review of file-swapping — and by extension, of the legal protections afforded to a host of mainstream technologies — has drawn interest from all corners, and Monday's decision won't stop the debate.
Copyright companies are pitted against technology manufacturers; conservative Christians are allied with Hollywood; government agencies at all levels are opposing venture capitalists. Here's a quick guide to some of the key players in the debate, what they've said, and why they care.
Copyright's knights
Copyright holders: The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), and the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) have been trying to force file-swapping software companies out of business since Napster's rise.
The RIAA blames rampant file-swapping in part for the substantial decline in music sales worldwide over the past four years, and says services such as Grokster are unfair competition for legal stores like iTunes. There's little sign that Hollywood's revenues are going down, but the MPAA says studios lost $3.5bn (£1.9bn) to physical piracy in 2004, which doesn't count the huge numbers of movies being swapped online.
All three groups are pressing for either a court or a legislative solution that would let them sue file-swapping companies, but for the last year, the RIAA, MPAA and their internation counterparts have instead turned their legal guns on individuals.
US government: The Solicitor General's office joined the copyright holders on the floor of the Supreme Court, arguing that intellectual-property protection was critical to the US economy. The office proposed modifying existing law to say that if a product is "overwhelmingly used" for infringement, and if a business depends on those illicit uses, then the company ought to be held liable.
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