SCOTUS Hears Arguments in Grokster

As scheduled, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments for the Grokster case yesterday.  So far, it looks as though at least some Justices are uncomfortable with tightening the copyright laws.  Justice Souter remarked, "I know perfectly well that I can buy a CD and put it on my iPod.  But I also know if I can get music without buying it, I'm going to do so."  The problem comes when you consider what Souter reffered to as "the guy in the garage."  "The question is: how do we know in advance that we can give the inventor -- that is, the developer -- the confidence to go ahead?" asked Souter.  "How do we avoid the foregone conclusion that the iPod developer is going to lose his shirt?"

Justice Ginsburg addressed an alternate concern that SCOTUSblog reports troubles a number of the Justices: how does one judge secondary infringement in the digital age?  Under the Betamax standard, secondary infrigement claims will fail against a product with substantial non-infringing uses.  So the question becomes: is the Betamax standard somehow inadequate for digital technology?

More as this develops...