“On March 29, the entertainment and technology industries will descend upon Washington, D.C. to argue their respective sides before the Supreme Court in the landmark case of MGM v Grokster. At stake: the future of peer-to-peer technology, consumer electronics, software design, and consumer rights in the United States.

In April 2003, a federal judge ruled that Streamcast Networks — the developer and distributor of the Morpheus file-sharing software, and Grokster — the developer and distributor of the Grokster file-sharing software, couldn’t be held liable for how its users interact across peer-to-peer networks. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in California upheld the lower courts ruling in August 2004, setting the stage for the coming showdown.

The movie and music industries, along with their wide-reaching allies from organizations as diverse as the National Football League to the Church Music Publishers Association will make the case that companies offering peer-to-peer software — the technology behind popular networks such as Kazaa, Morpheus, and Grokster — should be legally liable for the activities conducted over their networks.

Their goal is to overturn the Supreme Court’s 1984 Sony-Betamax decision, which holds that as long as “substantial commercial non-infringing uses” are possible with a technology, manufacturers aren’t legally responsible to police over the other, infringing uses.”

Full article: Showdown at the Supreme Court