NYU Professor Siva Vaidhyanathan has a “”readable”" piece on Salon.com discussing the Grokster opinion. If too much legal language makes your head hurt, give this article a shot, as Siva (who is not a lawyer) has a particularly realistic grip on the issues that were/are at stake.

The peer-to-peer phenomenon is often miscast as the proliferation of a radical set of technological tools meant to steal music. But the fact is, the Internet is fundamentally peer-to-peer. All that Grokster, Kazaa, or LimeWire do is let you efficiently search for keywords of content that sits on other people’s hard disks. If you have a problem with peer-to-peer you have a problem with the Internet. And short of shutting it down or radically reengineering it, there is nothing that Hollywood or Washington can do to stifle the file-sharing capabilities of those who use the Internet. Regardless of Monday’s decision, the software, music and movies will keep on flowing.

But the grand innovations in American technology may not. If the lower courts read the court’s ruling broadly, watch out: This could severely restrict other, more important innovations for decades to come. Even without broad readings, the courts could soon be filled with frivolous copyright suits against technology companies — handing big entertainment companies like MGM a potent economic weapon to wield against smaller innovators and upstarts that are developing new devices and models of distribution. Souter struggled to construct a decision that would not impede the inventor in her garage who is tinkering away at the next great thing. The problem is, she will definitely have to hire a lawyer now.

link: Read the entire article here…