Morpheus Asks Court To Declare Legality Of File Sharing Platform

from the interesting-strategy dept

Streamcast Networks, the makers of Morpheus, along with the folks over at EFF have asked a court for a summary judgment saying that Morpheus does not violate copyright law because it has substantial non-infringing uses. I think this is a pretty risky strategy. Unfortunately, up until now, the entertainment industry has done an amazing job programming people to automatically associate peer-to-peer networks and file sharing as meaning "theft". It seems that many people now instinctively consider Morpheus to only be about stealing - and a judge's ruling at this point is likely to fall along those lines, and make it harder in the long run for other companies to convince the entertainment industry that they've made a big mistake killing off one of the most efficient distribution mechanisms that was simply handed to them. Update: In related news, the RIAA has also asked the judge for a summary judgment, though (obviously) in their favor.