I really wish they'd just let it go. As far as music goes, the bands don't even make any money off of record sales, all that goes to the producers and all them guys. Bands make money off of concerts and stuff like that. You can't exactly bootleg a concert. You can with concert footage, but that just sucks.

if there's a will there's a way

LOL, I nearly shit a brick when I saw that the CCA had filed a Friends of the Court brief. Aren't they vocally against like 99% of the content that comes out of hollywood? Who says they're not a rightwing political group.

Well, hollywod has NEVER lied or distorted information in the past. Why would they start now?

One other thing I'm wondering about. If MGM wins and Grokster can be held responsible for it's product being used to commit "crimes", then can gun manufacturers be held responsible for the crimes commited using their products?

Okay, the post above was sarcastic, this question is for real.

which has more money, bigger lobby group, has part of u.s. constitution to back them up & what do you think will happen

"You can't exactly bootleg a concert. You can with concert footage, but that just sucks." are you completely ignorant to the massive world of bootlegs? by definition a bootleg is a recording of a concert...what else can you bootleg (in this context). websites like easytree.org and the now-non existent sharingthegroove.org were devoted to this trade. however, bands don't lose money due to this because the bootleggers have to obviously pay to get in, and most people who get bootlegs are diehard fans who would of gone if they could and who buy every album anyways. And as far as video bootlegs, i have seen some good ones.

@abader,
lol, ya, I did a double take when I read that first post. Apparently squizzle has never heard the glory that is a lossless capture of a concert. As long as the guy knows what hes doing, theres no difference between listening to the recording, and being there live, except that there is less crowd noise. And just for the record, I've been trading Radiohead bootlegs for about 5 years, have about 40 dvds of shows, and the 25 or so amatuer ones are the best of my collection. If a band has any kind of following, there will be a significant number of bootlegs, both video and audio, floating around, and a sizable community trading them.

@grayarea,
That is a damn good point, and I'd have to say, without being an expert, that you are correct. The parallels just seem too obvious not to be applicable. Both guns and p2p software have ligitimate uses, and illegal uses. The gun industry has been hiding behind the same arguement(that the industry is not responsible for that actions of the people who use their product) that Hollywood is now trying to invalidate.

It's going to be very interesting to see how this all plays out.

@ddp,
Yes, but if the SC sets a precendent, it would be almost unimmaginable that they would be selective in the way they interpreted it, especially for such similar cases. There's also an article of the constitution that gives congress the power to "provide measures that assure the good health of the nation". That little line has allowed congress to do all kinds of unconstitutional things, like outlawing drugs. I'm just saying, each precendent forces the SC to interpret the constitution a little bit differently, so I don't think anyone can predict what would follow from the conviction of Grokster.