Grokster

... for everybody to work together to create incredible new worlds of opportunities and revenue.

But we're fighting through the legal piece first, and we always seem to do that, don't we? We always have to like, like Grokster, like we had to get through the Supreme Court before people could start partnering and creating a new music industry.

And, you know, it's kinda, it's kinda tough that we have to go through that again.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, yeah, looking back at that time period with, with Napster and then later Grokster and all that stuff, the RIAA was super active at that time, um, and like you were alluding to, like, did go after music fans using Napster as a way to try to quell digital piracy at the time.

I think n-now that we're 20, 25 years after that time period, I think, I hear from music executives kind of this wanting to distance themselves from that period and being kinda like, "I don't know if we did the right thing there or not." And I, I'm just curious, at the RIAA, like, as you've reflected on that time period, do you feel like the RIAA handled Napster the way they should have?

We were sort of forced into it, um, in a succession of lawsuits, but you know, originally there was no suing of consumers.

But mere knowledge of infringing potential or of actual infringing use is not enough to subject a distributor to liability.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. vs. Grokster Ltd.

See also Cox Communications Inc. vs. Sony Music Entertainment.

Still, a generic manufacturer can cross the line into liability if it actively induces infringement of the brand manufacturer's patent.

And, and I mean, it was just a fascinating conversation because If you think about the history of music, you know, sure, once upon a time, like, m- the majority of music sales was from, was from, you know, CDs or, or, or albums or whatever it wa- whatever it was.

Um, and then along came the internet, and along with it Napster and Grokster and Kazaa and all of the things that, that essentially, you know, commodified music and made it available for free for everyone.

And even if you're an incredibly [chuckles] law-abiding human, um, the m- majority of people were actually just downloading music 'cause they wanted access, uh, to music.

And if you go back 23 years ago, um, the music industry, as in total, was about nine- valued at about nine bill- or eight, $8 billion, um, which is a lot of money, but it's not a lot of money for the entire music industry.

I can't remember.

I can't like... map down the timeline, but this is like even before Kazaa, like, you know, Napster, Grokster, Morpheus and stuff like that.

All those like CD file sharing programs.

But yeah, I decided to make one when I really started getting into Yu-Gi-Oh when Just for a few friends of mine, it's just like, oh, this might be funny.