MGM Studios, Inc. V. Grokster Case Study

Given the past two examples, the case could be made that the DMCA is broken, simply because the creators of the intellectual property do not seem to be as protected as the people who are potentially infringing, or that companies like YouTube can have others work on their site, simply by claiming it isn’t their fault. This is not true. In fact, the DMCA often protects copyright holders work. MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster is a perfect example of this. In 2005, a small conglomeration of intellectual property holders sued file sharing site Grokster after they created a software that allowed users to download copyrighted works. Grokster won the case in the district court after MGM cited the Betamax case, which determined that if a technology could …show more content…
This shows that content creators still have a right to their content, and that companies that knowingly allow the infringement to occur can still be liable for lawsuit. Another example of the DMCA protecting the copyright owners is in the RealNetworks, Inc. v. DVD Copy Control Association. RealNetworks, Inc. licensed the Content Scramble System, which prevented the copying of DVDs, from the DVD Copy Control Association. At the same time, they also created a software called RealDVD, which allowed users to bypass the Content Scramble System and copy the movie onto a hard drive. After the RealDVD software was released, RealNetworks preemptively sued the DVD-CCA and claimed that it had not produced any sort of copyright infringement, to which the DVD-CCA promptly