I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like music. I’m not assuming such humans don’t exist, but I am claiming they are a rare breed. For the rest of us music loving people, there are some decisions being made in the near future that just may change our music influenced lives: The MGM vs Grokster case.
For those of you who have never seen a movie, can’t make it out to Las Vegas when your buddies plan a trip, don’t pay attention to that roaring lion before Tom and Jerry episodes or just live under a really big rock, MGM is Metro Goldywn Mayer. Grokster does not have their own Vegas casino, however Kazaa and Morpheus are very closely tied in with Grokster, and those two other names may start ringing some bells. These three p2p (peer to peer) filesharing programs utilize the same network.
MGM is unhappy that people are able to download content created by MGM via these networks. They don’t make money when people download their expensively made media for free, so what do we do here in America, settle this in the court room.
This reminds us of the 1984 trial now referred to as Betamax, Sony Corp. of America vs. Universal City Studios, Inc. Allow me to water this down for you. The movie makers feared that with VCRs, people would halt all spending on the movies that they normally were going to theatres to view, and the fall of the movie industry was upon the world. Being alive today we know this didn’t happen. Home movies have been a huge money maker for the movie industry.
Why am I mixing movies and music? Are they different? Isn’t this court case about music and the internet, where did movies and video cassettes come into view? Continue reading
