High technologies enable the public to easily access to the copyrighted work and also to distribute them. Aside from the use of works, how can we look at technology itself from the perspective of copyright legal philosophy? Can we desist from developing technologies merely because it possibly encourages the public to infringe copyright? Or can we keep sticking to copyright ideal, which is not pragmatic at all in this fast-changing world?
In 1984, the Sony Court adopted the “staple article of commerce theory” which stands for the proposition that the sale of an article of commerce capable of substantial non-infringing use does not constitute contributory copyright infringement. But we are now in new world.
DMCA gave a safe harbor to the ISP under the circumstances of Sec 512(i). But it was 1998 when the Congress’s expectancy did not reach this top notch interactive technology circumstance. It seems that U.S. Supreme court considered over and over adverse effect of technology and gave us more or less reasonable standard through Grokster. However, in this time, court gave an advantage to big godzilla ISP without thinking the ideal which cannot be for real, but should be kept pursued. Safe harbor in Sec. 512 is meaningless when it is construed as a loophole for conduit provider like Google. Google earned money by using other’s copyrighted work without payment, and now it also has justification on what it has done through this court finding.
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