That disagreement came to life on Thursday at a panel discussion at the Jupiter Research DRM 2005 conference, as advocates on both sides of the argument talked about the ongoing effects on technology innovation and copyright protection, first brought to the limelight in the seminal Sony Betamax case in the '80s.

Both sides argued that the Supreme Court made a decision that all justices could agree with, but Fred von Lohman, senior intellectual property attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said that in doing so, the court failed to answer the hard questions, and left the interpretation so open that no technology innovator is exactly safe from the long arm of the law.

"Frankly, I think more trouble for tech companies is what the court didn't say," von Lohman said. "The reason we have 9-0 decision is because the Supreme Court chose to punt the hard questions presented in this case."

He stressed the fact that the Supreme Court decision was based on whether a technology actively "induced" or encouraged copyright infringement and ignored the concept of "contributory infringement" and "vicarious liability." Those principles were laid down in the Betamax case, stating that technology creators who do not actively encourage users to do something illegal cannot be held responsible if that product is used by someone else for pirating content or some other illegal activity.

von Lohman said that since the court did not address those two aspects of the Grokster dispute, it left expansive gray areas open to interpretation—a situation that could prove detrimental to technology innovation.

Read the full story on eWEEK.com: Panel Talks Life, Post-Grokster

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