U.S. SENATOR PATRICK LEAHY

. . . In Rare Court Filing Senators Urge Justices to Consider Merits of Grokster Case

MONDAY (January 24) – Two of the Senate’s leading champions on intellectual property issues took the unusual step Monday of submitting a legal brief in a case before the U.S. Supreme Court involving liability questions relating to peer-to-peer file sharing networks.

Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the ranking Democratic member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), filed an amicus brief in the case of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios v. Grokster, urging the high court to consider the case on its merits. 

The suit was filed against certain peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, including Grokster Ltd., alleging that the networks were liable for the massive copyright infringement.  The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled in favor of the P2P networks, saying current secondary liability rules do not apply to this technology.

Leahy, joined by Hatch, filed the “friend-of-the-court” brief as a rebuttal to the argument that was raised by defendants in the case that the courts do not have the appropriate authority to respond to new technologies like P2P networks.

“Both Congress and the courts have roles in resolving questions as important as those raised by the Grokster case, and based on those different responsibilities, it is up to the Court to decide this important question of whether to hold certain peer-to-peer networks liable under current copyright laws,” said Leahy, who has been a pioneer in the Senate on technology matters, crusading for copyright protections, privacy rights, and freedom of speech on the Internet.  Leahy is also a co-founder and co-chair of the Congressional Internet Caucus.

“Congress certainly plays a central role in keeping intellectual property laws up to date, but the courts generally, and the Supreme Court in particular, play a critical role in determining when those laws have been broken, and by whom,” he added.  

In the last Congress, Hatch and Leahy cosponsored the Inducing Infringement of Copyright Act of 2004.  The bill took narrow aim at the intentional inducement of others to commit copyright infringement, such as the bad actors who seek to profit from promoting copyright infringement.

Leahy will serve as the ranking Democratic member of the Intellectual Property Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee in the coming 109^th Congress.  Hatch will serve as the subcommittee’s chairman.     

The Court is expected to hear arguments in the Grokster case in the coming months.  A copy of the Leahy-Hatch legal brief, which was not filed in support of any party to the case, is available upon request