Decision of the court

Over all the deciding factor and the ruling of the United States Supreme Court concluded defendant Grokster and Streamcast was found guilty for inducing a software that promotes and violates copyright infringement laws. Grokster no longer offers its per-2-peer file sharing service. "The United States Supreme Court unanimously confirmed that using this service to trade copyrighted material is illegal. Copying copyrighted motion picture and music files using unauthorized peer-to-peer services is illegal and is prosecuted by copyright owners." Is now stated on the website when visited. Grokster is now forced to pay $50 million dollars to the music and recording industries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MGM_Studios,_Inc._v._Grokster,_Ltd.#The_Court.27s_decision

"While the Court unanimously concurred that Grokster could be liable for inducing copyright infringement, there was considerable disagreement over whether the case is substantially different from the Sony case, and whether the precedent established by Sony should be modified. On one hand, Justice Ginsburg, joined by Kennedy and Rehnquist, claim that "[t]his case differs markedly from Sony" based on insufficient evidence of noninfringing uses. On the other hand, Justice Breyer, joined by Stevens and O'Connor, claims "a strong demonstrated need for modifying Sony (or for interpreting Sony's standard more strictly) has not yet been shown," primarily because "the nature of [...] lawfully swapped files is such that it is reasonable to infer quantities of current lawful use roughly approximate to those at issue in Sony." These justices concur in the judgment on the narrow ground of Grokster's alleged inducement of its customers to use the product illegally.

Roughly speaking, the Ginsburg concurrence suggests that Grokster would be liable (unprotected by Sony) even absent evidence of inducement. The Breyer concurrence, on the other hand, suggests that Grokster would be protected by Sony without evidence of inducement. The Souter opinion does not address whether or not Sony protects Grokster. Thus, neither the view that Grokster is protected nor the view that Grokster is unprotected by Sony commanded a plurality of the Court."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MGM_Studios,_Inc._v._Grokster,_Ltd.#The_Court.27s_decision

"Whether the Ninth Circuit erred in concluding, contrary to long-established principles of secondary liability in copyright law (and in acknowledged conflict with the Seventh Circuit), that the Internet-based "file sharing" services Grokster and StreamCast should be immunized from copyright liability for the millions of daily acts of copyright infringement that occur on their services and that constitute at least 90% of the total use of the services. "

http://www.law.duke.edu/publiclaw/supremecourtonline/certgrants/2004/mgmvgro.html