ALA Files Amicus Brief Supporting P2P Technology

http://www.ala.org/ala/alonline/currentnews/newsarchive/2003/september2003/alafilesamicus.cfm


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Posted September 29, 2003.

ALA Files Amicus Brief Supporting P2P Technology

The American Library Association joined four other library associations September 26 in a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of the peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing companies Grokster and Morpheus in their defense against a copyright-infringement suit brought against them by MGM Studios and 27 other entertainment companies. Along with the Association of Research Libraries, the American Association of Law Libraries, the Medical Library Association, and the Special Libraries Association, ALA seeks “to ensure that file-sharing technology, which can be used for good purposes as well as bad, doesn’t get thrown out the window” as content providers seek to protect copyrighted works, Miriam Nisbet, legislative counsel for ALA’s Washington Office, told American Libraries. Joining the five library associations as amici are the Internet Archive and Project Gutenberg.

The case, MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd., is the entertainment-industry’s appeal of a June U.S. District Court ruling that held harmless the P2P companies for any copyright violations committed by users of their software. The plaintiffs contend that the lower-court decision “is not an application of copyright law to the online world but an abdication [because] the raison d’etre of [the Grokster and Morpheus] networks is the unlawful exchange of copyrighted songs and movies.”

“We are not supporting the wrongful sharing of copyrighted materials,” emphasized ALA Executive Director Keith Michael Fiels September 24 in an e-mail to the ALA Council discussion list. Rather, he explained, the library associations are seeking to uphold the principle that “free speech and the public interest are best served by rules that allow new and innovative mediums of communication to develop and flourish.”

The case will be heard by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

Posted September 29, 2003.