Will they (Kazaa, eDonkey, BitTorrent and so on) still be legal to download?
Downloading the software itself isn’t illegal. As long as the companies want to distribute the software, there’s nothing in the court ruling that says consumers themselves can’t download it. However, using the software to trade copyrighted songs, movies or software remains illegal in the United States. All can be used for noninfringing uses, such as distributing open-source software or noncopyrighted works. BitTorrent, in particular, has been widely used for distribution of open-source software. That said, today’s court decision may ultimately make it more difficult to get some file-swapping software. Why is this so important to me? I don’t download movies or music online. Grokster wasn’t just about file swapping, and this ruling was viewed by some as one of the most critical technological decisions in the last 20 years. That’s because it threatened to undo a Supreme Court balance struck in 1984, which allowed the Sony Betamax videocassette recorder to be sold without liability, even t
