Petteri Pyyny
9 Nov 2003 1:00
The long-running legal case between RIAA and now de-funct P2P company Madster (which was formerly known as Aimster) seems to be headed to U.S. Supreme Court.
Case began in May, 2001 when RIAA sued Aimster over copyright infringements. In September, 2002 federal court granted a preliminary injunction against Aimster/Madster, forcing the company to either filter all illegal material from its network or to be shut down. Aimster/Madster didn't comply and judge ordered a temporary restraining order against the company, asking it to shut down its servers immediately in December, 2002.
Madster eventually complained to the Appeals Court, but Appeals Court upheld the lower court decision, even that the court made some very valid points about non-infringing uses of P2P networks in its decision.
Now, according to court records, company founder Johnny Deep has filed a petition to Supreme Court to overturn the decision. Now Supreme Court has to decide whether or not it wants to take the case -- if it rejects the case, that will most likely be the last page in Madster's history. But the recent decisions in various P2P cases, most notably the Federal Court decision that P2P companies Grokster and Streamcast didn't violate the copyright laws, have to have some weight in Supreme Court's pending decision.
Source: Slyck.com