US Courts: P2P Services are legal

At least the US courts are sensible enough to see that P2P services are legal. This is surely a setback for the entertainment industry that have been trying to outlaw file-sharing. Although this does not mean that sharing copyrighted files is legal, it's still a victory. Score 1 for cyber freedom, 0 for the greedy corporations.

"This is a major victory -- a victory that goes far beyond peer-to-peer and is relevant to technology innovators of all kinds," said lawyer Fred von Lohmann, who argued the case for Grokster and StreamCast before the court. "The reason we took this case is to make it clear that people who develop new technologies should not have to face endless expensive litigation from Hollywood even where those technologies may disrupt existing business models."

If you're interested, you can also download the 16MB MP3 audio of EFF IP Attorney Fred von Lohmann's oral argument in the appeal. If you'd like explore further, read the PDF of the court decision.