US Supreme Court trying to decide between innovations and copyright protections

US Supreme Court trying to decide between innovations and copyright protections

Technology is a necessary evil. When laws of the land interfere with it, the complications magnify. The latest dilemma in this situation is the court case between the infamous entertainment giants vs. innovative companies case where MGM is taking on Grokster. The issue is that limiting software developers to prevent the side effects, which hurt the old generation companies, would block technical advancements, which might change the way we interact or use the Internet.

The case is not as simple as any other normal case. They have to protect the rights of the entertainment giants without telling the software developers to stop creating new technologies. This is considering the fact that software developers do not pirate copyrighted stuff… the users do. And they cannot really control what ordinary user do with the software, which these software companies develop.

The situation is quite similar to photocopiers and CD/DVD writing technologies. If they rule in favor of the entertainment giant, it would be virtually telling the software industry to stop any innovation, which includes data transfer or data replication thus hurting them, the technological world, and the common user in a very bad way.

Logic says software developers cannot be blamed for the actions of the users using the software. However, doing it deliberately by giving away too many facilities for sharing pirated content is wrong and should be punished. Now, it for the justice department to decide who is at fault here…