As Alfred Yen, professor of law at the Boston College Law School, states in his introduction, this article "studies the construction of third party copyright liability in light of the recent Supreme Court case Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. v Grokster, Ltd.” The article is broken up into five sections: the first describes the doctrines that governed third party liability before Grokster, the second uses “fault and strict liability to expose the theoretical and practical tradeoffs implicit I these differing constructions, the third analyzes the case itself, the fourth describes the implications of the decision and “sets forth the general contours of an improved, post-Grokster­ construction of third party copyright liability, and the fifth gives some thought to the future of this subject matter.

The Grokster case is the latest in a series of cases where an internet service provider has been prosecuted for the actions of its users. Yet, even with this new decision in the books, little progress has been made to determine who is really the most responsible for infringement or how to hold them adequately responsible. Yen writes that “third part copyright liability benefits society by encouraging individuals to stop others from infringing, but those benefits come at a price… third party copyright liability suppresses non-infringing as well as infringing behavior.” Overall, this paradox illustrates the biggest deficit of internet copyright law: the inability to find the balance between, in Yen’s words, “desirable and undesirable consequences” of new technology. At this point in time, there seems to be no obvious strategy for regulating the internet without stifling future innovation and creation.

This article points out that although Grokster “gave the Supreme Court the opportunity to straighten out the law of third party copyright liability” little to no progress was actually made in interpreting pre-Grokster doctrines of third party copyright liability. Instead of “choosing between” existing “differing interpretations” of the law, Yen writes that the court “adopted a dormant theory of third party copyright liability, inducement.” Overall, Yen’s article shows that “inducement give courts a new tool for holding culpable defendants liable which reducing the risk of undesirable side effects.” Yen describes the Grokster decision as being “not a landmark, so much as a milestone, ratifying a continuing détente between those who build on the Internet and those in a position to regulate the builders.” This decision has also turned the focus of internet gate keeping to controlling software and PC uses ability to run that software rather than the ability to control the entire network.

Whether or not one agrees with the merit of the new inducement doctrine, this article is a comprehensive look at an area of copyright law that is important and continuing to quickly evolve. The story of these laws will continue to change drastically in the years to come, but this is a useful, informative and through-provoking look at the situation thus far.

This article is written by the Center for Democracy and Technology, a non-profit interest group that “seeks to promote free expression, privacy, and individual liberty on the open, decentralized internet.” This document “outlines the limits on the scope of secondary copyright liability,” looking at the Grokster decision, the landmark decision in Sony Corporation of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. (1984), and patent law precedents relating to inducement liability. The goal of this investigation is to make sure that "secondary liability for copyright infringement does nothing to compromise legitimate commerce or discourage innovation having lawful promise.’” The Grokster case and the Sony decision can obviously be looked at be looked at individually, but this article does a nice job of synthesizing the information and explaining how they impact each other.

The article focuses on the new implications of the “inducement test,” what repercussions the situation has for the Sony rule and what this all means for vicarious liability. The article focuses on one key difference in clarification between the Grokster and Sony decisions. The language in the Grokster decisions "suggests that the Sony test focuses on 'substantial' non-infringing uses, not 'commercially significant' non-infringing uses." With Grokster, the emphasis was certainly placed on the commerical uses of the site. Monetary gains became one of the most significant factors of the case, not just ethical or legal implications. Certainly the internet is just as much a business as any other commerical frontier in the world, but more and more - especially illustrated with the Grokster decision - financial viability is the determining legal decision making. For example, today YouTube is currently seen as protected by the safe harbor provison, although some of the content being posted on YouTube today was possibly (or probably) also availible on Grokster. YouTube has been able to position itself not only in a safe harbor in a legal sense, but also in a financial sense by teaming up with companies who own many of the copyrighted works that are being infringed.

Of course the Sony case was also motivated by money, but more than ever before the current world of the web and the sites that are allowed to function within its borders are completely a function of their monetary potential for copyright holders. Grokster was taken to court because it posed a threat to the financial success of copyright holders. YouTube poses a similar threat as well, but thus far has been able to keep in partnership with the people who would be taking them to court in the first place.

Amanda Bronstad in this article writes about the differences between the copyright infringement cases that ultimately doomed music file sharing sites like Napster and Grokster and the current batch of cases involving video sharing sites like YouTube.  On one side of the argument, video sharing sites say that a major percentage of their content is perfectly legitimate and legal.  Also, these sites, especially YouTube, point out that they remove content considered to be copyright infringing immediately after they are notified by the copyright holder.  This did not happen with music file sharing sites. However, lawyers for Hollywood's major studios say that their case is bolstered by the fact that they now have a precedent in MGM v. Grokster.  They argue that web sites know they make money off of this infringing material, and therefore are liable for induced infringement.  They also say that video sharing sites may be considered direct infringers because of the role these sites take in editing user content.

Bronstad also notes that while the recent agreements between YouTube and major studios such as Universal, Warner, and CBS does help legitimize the site, the agreements aren't necessarily "suit proof".  She says that many experts in the field see a major gray area that could be exploited by an ambitious company or law firm.  She says that the debate will ultimately come down to the DMCA's "safe harbor provision", and whether or not these video sites have put in place and enforced rules to protect themselves from future legal issues.  She says that the strongest safe harbor these companies have is the ability to remove copyright infringing material from their sites.  If sites continue to consistently remove copyright infringing content, as YouTube has done over the last few months, then these companies will have a strong legal foundation for their business models.