High court says no to file-sharing

Mecury News story about Supreme Court’s unanimous 9-0 ruling today that Internet file-sharing services such as Grokster can be held liable if it touts its service as a way for users to illegally download music or movies.

So Hollywood has beat Silicon Valley into submission.

The court stated that Grokster and StreamCast Networks “are aware that users employ their software primarily to download copyrighted files” and marketed themselves as a legal alternative to Napster, the ground-breaking file-sharing service that the courts effective shut down in 2001 for copyright infringement.

(Update: At least Justice Souter had a sense of humor: He said Streamcast made the supreme court briefs in case available P2P, although it was unclear how popular they were.)