Here it is, Metro Goldwyn Mayer Studios Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd. a 324kb PDF o’ change. Back in March I screamed save betamax, save innovation and on first glance when one sees a 9-0 landslide you’d think I again would have something to scream about, and of course you’d be right.

SUPREME COURT JUSTICES ARE TOO OLD FOR US CRAZY KIDS

To prove my point, Justice Souter wrote the decision for the court, which included this legal gem:

We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by the clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties.

I can’t gag back the feeling that broad rulings like this one by the Supremes are just cop-outs—let’s toss it back down around the lower courts for a while and see what bobs back up? There I said it, now let me quote Siva Vaidhyanathan of Salon.com who is more than a tad more eloquent than I.

If the lower courts read the court’s ruling broadly, watch out: This could severely restrict other, more important innovations for decades to come. Even without broad readings, the courts could soon be filled with frivolous copyright suits against technology companies — handing big entertainment companies like MGM a potent economic weapon to wield against smaller innovators and upstarts that are developing new devices and models of distribution. Souter struggled to construct a decision that would not impede the inventor in her garage who is tinkering away at the next great thing. The problem is, she will definitely have to hire a lawyer now.

Vaidhyanathan continues by postulating that the darlings of the post-com could be the biggest intellectual property violators of them all:

What about Google? Consider this: Google, like Grokster, is primarily a search engine. Its business model relies on advertisements. And the more we use Google, the more money it makes. Like Grokster, Google resolves communication queries. It generates a link from an information provider to an information seeker. And almost all of what it delivers is copyrighted.

As frustrating as a ruling like this is, I don’t think it’s potent enough to stifle innovation but also not fairly grounded enough to form a cogent platform for protecting IP. Some have said it is clearly a ruling against P2P, but I believe it is obviously not and it certainly won’t make much of a difference in the use of such networks, only in the quantity of lawsuits surrounding them.