Skype and the MGM v. Grokster Ruling
"We do not have a comment" said a Skype Technologies representative.
Today's U.S. Supreme Court ruling says makers of tools that let users infringe copyright may be held liable for that infringement second-hand only if they promoted that use of the technology. So music and movie companies must prove the team at, say, KaZaA made a "clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement" to win their case.
I'm glad that I'm not Skype at the moment. They must have lawyers going through all the "Share Skype" animations and the feature lists and documentation, checking against the new standard. SkypeTech should no longer tell people they can use Skype to:
- play copyrighted music from their computers over the phone,
- play unlicensed music in voice mail announcements and messages
- send mp3s or movies via Skype's file transfer feature,
- listen to the copyrighted soundtrack to a movie playing on someone else's television while you watch it on vSkype or Video4Skype
- or that I can copy and paste the lyrics to "The Windmills of Your Mind" to a "Skype friend" without an ASCAP clearance
See also:
Do you think this ruling applies to weapon makers?
Comments
I believe Skype is clean in regards to any type of promotion of illegal activity. I can't remember ever seeing anything like that.
I'm surprised Skype would not say they are clean, rather than "no comment". I suppose for legal reasons, but still if you're clean, you're clean!
Posted by: Rick | June 27, 2005 07:09 PM
I did not read the U.S. Supreme court ruling but if this is really the case even sending files by FTP is dangerous.
Posted by: bluedude | June 28, 2005 12:01 AM
Posted by: kungfu | June 29, 2005 07:54 AM
The court created a criterion by which makers of products may be held liable for the misdeeds of their customers. Essentially, did they intend for customers to use the product in a bad way and act to promote that use.
I live in Oakland, California, where the newspaper reports "our hundredth murder" like Spring is Early This Year. How many civil lawsuits would it take to dry up the influx of new firearms? The court offered an avenue for second-hand tortious liability.
caveat lector: I'm not a lawyer.
Posted by: Phil Wolff | June 29, 2005 08:56 AM
Hi Phil!
Yeah this should be some concern to Skype but, correct me if I'm wrong, isn't Skype a European company? I'm no lawyer either but does the Court ruling applies to foreign products as well?
Bye for now, it's so nice to see your name pop up everywhere from now and then :P
Posted by: Riccardo (Bru) | June 29, 2005 02:05 PM
The judgement seems to hang solely on the incitement of Grokster & Streamcast to their customers to infringe on copyright.
In fact, it also seems to imply that it may be ok to refer to illicit uses of your software in advertisng so long as you take positive steps to diminish it.
Note 12 states 'Of course, in the absence of other evidence of intent, a court would
be unable to find contributory infringement liability merely based on a
failure to take affirmative steps to prevent infringement, if the device
otherwise was capable of substantial noninfringing uses. Such a
holding would tread too close to the Sony safe harbor. '
I feel the ruling is specific to the enticement of the Napster customers in advertising by Morpheus and Grokster. Any P2P sharing application that does not actively encourage infringement of copyright should be safe - of course, the ground is somewhat less solid than it used to be.
Posted by: Paul Jardine | June 30, 2005 02:20 AM
Hello!
The best way for recording: Skype + Pamela (http://www.pamela-systems.com)!
Posted by: Punisher | January 1, 2006 11:48 AM