JeffKirvin.net

From Lessig’s Blog, guest-blogged this week by Tim Wu:

“So the question on Grokster-watchers� minds: Cert? (For non-lawyers: will the Supreme Court hear this case?)

My guess is yes, for 7 reasons, ranging from the more to less legal:

1. These is a stated legal conflict on the Sony standard as between the 7th and 9th Circuits;
2. The 7th and 9th Circuits disagree (albeit in partially in dicta) on the relevance of willful blindness to secondary liability;
3. The Court has these matters in hand: it has granted cert. in many similar cases historically (Sony, 1980s, White-Smith (the Piano Roll case) 1909, Teleprompter and Fortnightly (Cable / Broadcast, 1960s & 1970s);
4. The Court has a vague sense that some far-out stuff is going on in the field of �Computer Law� that maybe it should check out;
5. Law clerks use P2P technology to plan basketball games;
6. Stevens and Breyer deeply dig this stuff;

And most importantly,

7. The Court loves to be the center of attention, and this would make it so.”