If you haven’t been paying attention, yesterday the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) decided that file sharing services and companies that have been operating and encouraging their users to illegally share and download copyrighted material over their networks can be sued by the music and movie industry for “damages” caused by the users on their networks. The high court came to this decision 9 to 0; or unanimously.
A sad day for technology, and while usually I have a little faith in the Supreme Court to make decisions central to the people and the advance of the people’s goodwill, in this case I find that this is likely just another example of people making decisions about technology and the law without any knowledge of technology. I fear that this will stifle communications and collaboration technology and put so much fear into technology companies that as soon as their technology is discovered to have a remote, possible use that could run contrary to our Draconian copyright laws, the lawyers of the entertainment industry will descend and rip those companies to shreds. The only technology that’ll be allowed will be that approved by the industry; but that doesn’t mean we won’t see good technology (think iTunes, for example), it just means we’ll see a slowdown of innovation and more companies looking over their shoulder than looking at how they can improve their product or service their customers.
Regardless, that’s just my opinion; you can read more details of the decision and come up with your own! Wired has the scoop:
[ http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,68007,00.html?tw=newsletter_topstories_html ]