In Grokster v. MGM
Studios, Inc.,
MGM studios was bringing suit against Grokster, a peer-to-peer (P2P
file sharing program) for allowing the sharing of copyright material
over the Internet. We see a few key differences between this case
and the Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios case. Similar to Sony, Grokster provided a program that
people could install on their computer and then have access to legal
and copyrighted content on the Internet. Several arguments were also
brought up in regards to portable music devices which allow one to
purchase a CD and copy it to their mp3 player for portable use. The
key difference in Grokster, however, is that it advertised and
distributed is product with the object of promoting illegal use for
violating copyright. Grokster could not prove that its main intent
was not to provide access to copyrighted material, despite there
being a narrow market utilizing this service for legal legitimate
purposes. This is an important difference between Sony and Grokster.