A federal judge ruled Friday that Morpheus and Grokster are NOT liable for piracy of copyrighted works the way Napster was.

The RIAA intends to appeal and claims the ruling is in conflict with the Napster ruling. However, the judge states that because Morpheus and Grokster do not maintain a central server they are not actually hosting any of the pirated files or facilitating the trade of pirated works. They simply provide the software the same as a VCR company or CDRW manufacturer simply creates the device.

Napster, because they had a central server and the ability to police and delete pointers to illegal works was held liable.

Kazaa chose to be considered separately and their case will be heard Monday.

Click here for the complete article: Morpheus, Grokster Not Liable for Piracy

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I had not realized from the Subject that there was already a post on this topic. I have tried twice to delete this thread but it just keeps timing out. To see the original thread on this topic click here: P2P Same As A VCR?
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