On CNET's Media Blog, John Borland reports that all remaining U.S. Supreme Court opinions for the current term will be issued on Monday morning at 10 a.m. EDT. That means that the Court's decision in the Grokster case (MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd.) will finally be revealed. This is the case dealing with the legality of the Grokster and Morpheus peer-to-peer file sharing software (and by extension, other file sharing programs such as Kazaa, Bearshare, Gnucleus, LimeWire, Phex, Shareaza, and countless others).

A ruling against the software makers could have widespread impact on all sorts of digital entertainment systems, including MP3 players and digital video recorders (like TiVo). On the other hand, a decision against the music industry could force record labels to step up their efforts to sue consumers they suspect of trading music files illegally. Most experts, however, expect the decision to fall somewhere in between those two extremes.

Regardless of the outcome, downloading the new Backstreet Boys CD on Kazaa will still be illegal (and indicative of poor taste in music).

Other notable decisions expected Monday include two Ten Commandments cases (Van Orden v. Perry and McCreary County v. ACLU of Kentucky) and the Brand X broadband access case (FCC v. Brand X Internet Services).

[CNET Media Blog] Grokster, Brand X rulings to come Monday

If you've been following the entertainment industry's recent strategy of suing filesharers into submission, check out Jeff Howe's excellent "Wired" piece about the underground networks that are responsible for most of the pirated content on the Net.

As Howe points out, a relatively small number of people have to engage in a lot of criminal activity before a movie or CD is even available on networks such as Kazaa and WinMX:

It's all a big game.... Whoever transfers the most files to the most sites in the least amount of time wins. There are elaborate rules, with prizes in the offing and reputations at stake.... Once a file is posted to a [top underground network], it starts a rapid descent through wider and wider levels of an invisible network, multiplying exponentially along the way. At each step, more and more pirates pitch in to keep the avalanche tumbling downward. Finally, thousands, perhaps millions, of copies - all the progeny of that original file - spill into the public peer-to-peer networks: Kazaa, LimeWire, Morpheus. Without this duplication and distribution structure providing content, the P2P networks would run dry.

This, of course, runs contrary to the industry's reasoning for suing public P2P users, which is that regular consumers are buying music and movies and then sharing them with the world:

In reality, the number of files on the Net ripped from store-bought CDs, DVDs, and videogames is statistically negligible. People don't share what they buy; they share what is already being shared - the countless descendants of a single "Adam and Eve" file. Even this is probably stolen; pirates have infiltrated the entertainment industry and usually obtain and rip content long before the public ever has a chance to buy it.

Through interviews with several people active in the underground networks, Howe provides a detailed account of how pirates obtain their source material, prepare it for distribution, and unleash it upon the world.

[Wired.com] The Shadow Internet

* * *

Howe's story comes just one day after Clive Thompson's equally intriguing report on BitTorrent, the most recent thorn in Hollywood's side.

[Wired.com] The BitTorrent Effect