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June 27, 2005

Supreme Court Rules Against Grokster

Another nail in the well-secured coffin for file-sharing.

I haven't, ummm, "shared" files since they shut down Napster. What a wonderful, felonious time that was.

Also more SC decisions: Ten Commandments on courthouse wall in Kentucky ruled unconstantional, as religiously motivated; but no problem with a monument containing the Ten Commandments by the statehouse in Austin, Texas.

The Supreme Court seems to be slicing the baloney sort of thin.

I blame Sandra Day O'Connor, personally. Not sure if her previous decisions were referenced (though they probably were), but her whole style of decision making-- or rather decision-delaying-- causes a great deal of confusion. And litigation.

Scalia always had a strong preference for bright-line rules. Bright line rules had the wonderful benefit of letting people actually know what the law was, is, and will be. This not only informed people, it reduced litigation, because a Scalia-authored decision would tend to let any future litigants know if they'd win or lose a case. So they wouldn't bother going to court at all. Both sides (usually) could tell who would prevail.

Isn't it nice to know what the law is?

Sandy, on the other hand, could very rarely lower herself to joining a black-and-white decisions, particularly on hot-button issues. And, being a swing vote, you'd need to enlist her to have your side win, and that seems to often come at the expense of making the law into dogfood.

She almost always favors "balancing tests" in which a litany of "factors" to be considered would be enumerated. Sometimes there'd be like ten such factors, and she wouldn't make it clear even as to what priority they'd be considered.

So in any future litigation, you'd have her precious laundry list of "factors" to be "balanced" splitting 6-4 or even 5-5 between parties, a lot of them arguably going either way anyhow, and no one would know who would prevail in a lawsuit, until actually suing.

And even then you wouldn't know, because the lower court could see the factors balancing one way and an appeals court another way and really you wouldn't know the law until Sandy had a chance to check each lawsuit personally on the Supreme Court.

Lawyers must love her. She's a cash cow. With people never knowing what the law actually it, it creates a lot of lawsuits.

posted by Ace at 12:08 PM

Comments

The file-sharing decision, from what I can tell, is crazy.

Next up for suing: Bitorrent

Posted by: Greg on June 27, 2005 12:25 PM

WRT splitting the Ten Commandment cases, I enjoyed Jonah Goldberg's comment in the Corner-- couldn't the SCOTUS just prohibited the display of all the commandments mentioning God, and kept the rest?

Just as arbitrary a decision as the ones SCOTUS handed down today, methinks.

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

Posted by: Dave at Garfield Ridge on June 27, 2005 12:26 PM

I, for one, cannot freaking stand O'Connor's opinions.

The process of balancing multiple factors is not a genuine form of legal reasoning. It is simply a way of rationalizing a conclusion that one has already reached.

Posted by: Phinn on June 27, 2005 12:35 PM

It is simply a way of rationalizing a conclusion that one has already reached.

Amen, Phinn.

Posted by: Rocketeer on June 27, 2005 12:41 PM

So stealing is illegal. Who knew?

Posted by: someone on June 27, 2005 12:53 PM

It's only theft if what you take has some value.

Have you listened to any music lately?

Posted by: Rocketeer on June 27, 2005 01:04 PM

Agree with Phinn. If any Justice goes, I pray it is O'Connor. She has turned into a vapid senile fool devoid of logic who decides on how she "feels" at any given moment and then completely muddles up majority decisions she is involved in with stuff pulled out of thin air.

Who scrambled gay anal sex into a 14th Amendment blessed road to gay marriage despite not a shred of law justifying her. Who reverses herself on her own past decisions, many times clueless she is doing so. Her famous rectal pluck that affirmative action should continue for - Oh, I don't know...25 more years...yeah, that's a dandy number!! And it goes on and on with her making a hash of things and ensuring endless litigation on what the SCOTUS was supposed to be the final word on.

If she does go, the only thing I will miss will be Scalia's dissents skewering her - essentially - as an idiot not fit to run a traffic court.

At least Ruth the Bat, the ACLU's mouthpiece, Breyer, Mr. "International Law trumps the Constitution" are clear thinkers. Wrong thinkers, but clear thinkers.

Posted by: Cedarford on June 27, 2005 01:12 PM

Clue for Gov Mike Easley. Hank Hill would not like this ruling.

Posted by: Dman on June 27, 2005 01:27 PM

Actually, it was Breyer who was "straddling" on the two Ten Commandent decisions (O'Connor sided with the liberals on both decisions)

Posted by: JFH on June 27, 2005 02:15 PM

Lighten up, Sandy baby.

Posted by: riggo on June 27, 2005 02:29 PM

I used to read Supreme Court opinions until they got so insane I'd turn purple with rage. I've had to ignore them as much as I can for awhile now. We need somebody to get mad and make noise about them, but for the moment I resign. I'll leave the rightous-indignation-stroke to those more able and qualified than myself, like the ACE OF SPADES.

Posted by: 72VIRGINS on June 27, 2005 03:43 PM

It'll be interesting to see how this can be enforced.

This doesn't bother me as much as the new protections being put on new CDs so that you can only copy songs from them a set number of times. THAT ticks me off no end and will only make illegal/immoral downloading more popular. I'm not about to buy a CD when I can't copy at leisure the few songs worth listening to onto my portable devices.

Later,
bbeck

Posted by: bbeck on June 27, 2005 03:43 PM

Isn't the 10 Commandments on display on the SCOTUS doors and the side gates? How's this ruling effect that display?

Posted by: digitalbrownshirt on June 27, 2005 07:30 PM

Isn't the 10 Commandments on display on the SCOTUS doors and the side gates? How's this ruling effect that display?

It reveals it for the hypocritical bullshit that it is.

Posted by: Phinn on June 27, 2005 08:55 PM