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Billionaire backs P2P firms

28 March 2005 15:36 by James "Dela" Delahunty | 10 comments

Billionaire entrepreneur, Mark Cuban has promised to help Grokster financially in its battle against major record labels and movie studios. Tomorrow, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in the dispute between StreamCast and the media companies. Hollywood is depending on the high court to reverse two lower court decisions that found developers and owners of decentralised P2P networks not liable for any copyright infringement that is committed using the software. They will also have to convince the Supreme Court to rule against the Betamax decision which made many things like VCR's legal because they have legitimate purposes.

"We are a digital company that is platform agnostic, bits are bits. We don�t care how they are distributed, just that they are. We want our content to get to the customer in the way the customer wants to receive it, when they want to receive it, at a price that is of value to them. Simple business." Mr Cuban said on his blog. "Unless Grokster loses to MGM in front of the Supreme Court. If Grokster loses, technological innovation might not die, but it will have such a significant price tag associated with it, it will be the domain of the big corporations only."

Cuban owns movie theatres and also the rights to several movies and TV shows and simply believes that P2P technology should have the right to thrive. "It will be a sad day when American corporations start to hold their US digital innovations and inventions overseas to protect them from the RIAA, moving important jobs overseas with them," Cuban wrote. "That�s what happens if the RIAA is able to convince the Supreme Court of the USA that rather than the truth, which is, Software doesn�t steal content, people steal content, they convince them that if it can impact the music business, it should be outlawed because somehow it will."

Not many details were given on what financing he will offer or how much but we do know that he has pledged to fund the EFF's (Electronic Frontier Foundation) defence of Grokster. Whatever way you look at it he is brave to stand up against his peers and side with P2P. "This is the big content companies, against me. Mark Cuban and my little content company."

Sources:
The Register
Cuban's Blog

Permalink to this article

Mark Cuban upset with P2P freeloaders (21 November 2007)

Music label boss slams RIAA suits (21 August 2006)

Supreme Court rules in favour of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in P2P case (27 June 2005)

StreamCast adds BitTorrent support to Morpheus 5.0 (23 June 2005)

P2P case hits Supreme Court (30 March 2005)

Intel wants high-court to protect file sharing (3 March 2005)

Artists rally support behind P2P (1 March 2005)

Hollywood claims P2P case is not about technology (25 January 2005)

P2P networks are here to stay (23 January 2005)

Supreme Court to hear P2P case (22 January 2005)

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Discuss this article!
Pop_Smith (Senior Member) 28 March 2005 17:06
Quote: Cuban owns movie theatres and also the rights to several movies and TV shows wow, lol maybe this will help MGM and the R$AA to realize P2P isn't so evil after all. :D [ + quote]
philipman (Senior Member) 28 March 2005 17:13
Thats good someone is helping out other than sueing and hurting peoples lives! memorex is the best! [ + quote]
Toiletman (Senior Member) 28 March 2005 17:30
Rather unexpected... billionaire entrepreneur. Wow. [ + quote]
Achilles3 (Senior Member) 28 March 2005 18:58
It's about time someone steps up for the little man. [ + quote]
newb_11 (Junior Member) 28 March 2005 21:53
Cuban is a bad ass. He started off a little guy b4 making it big. Check out his bio as the owner of the dallas mavericks here http://www.nba.com/mavericks/news/cuban_bio000329.html Must be nice. Prior to his purchase of the Mavericks, Cuban co-founded Broadcast.com, the leading provider of multimedia and streaming on the Internet, in 1995, selling it to Yahoo! in July of 1999. Before Broadcast.com, Cuban co-founded MicroSolutions, a leading National Systems Integrator, in 1983, and later sold it to CompuServe. Today, in addition to his ownership of the Mavericks, Cuban is an active investor in leading and cutting-edge technologies and continues to be a sought-after speaker. [ + quote]
venomX05 (Senior Member) 29 March 2005 4:10
Now everyone sees what's happening here... As P2P becomes more noticable in mainstream media, there are those few who are definately seeing the benefit of these programs. More and more, you are definately going to see an increase in the number of people who are going to be backing P2P programs. Not only that, but with the Kazaa decision coming within a few short weeks, this is going to make a HUGE impact, regardless of if they are found guily or the case gets dropped. In the grand scheme of things, this is going to set a precedence, because not only are P2P programs starting to become more popular, their use in everyday society, is becoming more and more apparent. Even corporations rely on P2P programs in order to get work and tasks shifted around. There are programs that have private servers for people to use since 1 client could be in East Asia and another client is in Australia. This statement sums it all up: Quote: Software doesn�t steal content, people steal content, And let us not forget the fact that the RIAA just had a REALLY good year with a 2% boost in sales. Wow! For some reason, I REALLY don't think they have much of anything to say. Now let's be honest, P2P is here to stay regardless, so if the RIAA and the MPAA don't embrace they are going to do more harm than good. Quote: "It will be a sad day when American corporations start to hold their US digital innovations and inventions overseas to protect them from the RIAA, moving important jobs overseas with them," Yes it will be, Cuban...yes it will be! [ + quote]
l34merik (Member) 29 March 2005 10:16
yea things are begining to turn around. It's good to see someone stand up for the common people. The RIAA shouldn't complain if they're doing better now. [ + quote]
Ecin (Junior Member) 30 March 2005 8:39
Cuban ain't stupid. Something has to be in it for him. But in a way he is liberal, wearing Tshirts and football jerseys. Instead of Suits and ties like his peers (monetary wise.) [ + quote]
12ick2000 (Junior Member) 31 March 2005 14:37
p2p cannot be shut down no matter how this case turns out. it is a very interesting case though i wonder what will happen. it is also very odd how this billionare ive never heard of is backing grokster, whats in it for him? hmm ... very interesting [ + quote]
chazbmwUS (Inactive) 25 June 2005 11:17
Quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Software doesn�t steal content, people steal content, The people that mass produce copies for profit are the one hurting the industry,not everyday people. Evevyone suffers for the actions of a few bad apples [ + quote]