P2P sites lose out to Hollywood

The US Supreme Court today unanimously ruled that file sharing networks can be held liable for software infringement by their users.  The decision is a blow to P2P sites such as Grokster and Morpheus – they had sought to rely on the earlier Betamax case which protected video recorder manufacturers from legal action for copyright infringement, and which is often cited as showing that a manufacturer cannot be liable where its products are used to infringe copyright if they also have legitimate potential uses.    This view looks set to change…