Grokster v. StreamCast, Inc. v. District Court and Court of Appeals, Part II

Grokster is a second-generation peer-to-peer file sharing program for transmitting music files, movies, images, and other files over the Internet. It allows users to exchange these files without relying on a central server and can be used with other P2P software, such as Morpheus, iMesh, and Kazaa. Its user base includes millions of people who share copyrighted works. The Supreme Court ruled against Grokster in 2005, essentially making their brand of file sharing illegal.

In finding Grokster’s and StreamCast’s software products capable of substantial noninfringing uses, the District Court and the Court of Appeals appear to have relied primarily on a motley collection of declarations. For example, petitioners’ own expert declared that 75% of the current files available through Grokster were copyrighted and 15% “likely” to be copyrighted. App. 438-439. The remaining 10%, he conceded, “was not enough information to form reasonable conclusions either as to what those files even consisted of or whether they were infringing or noninfringing.”

While the number of noninfringing copies may be large, it does not follow that Grokster’s and StreamCast’s products are put to such uses. For one thing, the numbers of noninfringing copies may be dwarfed by the huge total volume of files shared. In addition, the District Court and the Court of Appels did not sharply distinguish between uses of Grokster’s and StreamCast’s specific software products (which this case is about) and uses of peer-to-peer technology generally, which this case is not about.