LuminousVoid

SCOTUSblog has the details.

Looks like the court was concerned about stiffling innovation, and dismissive of the “look at their business model” argument of the content industry — telling them to go make an active inducement claim on that.

Also it looks like some form of Sony will survive. There was one amicus brief that wanted it overturned. Though its unclear what form it will take. An affirmative defense? A separate avenue of liability?

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg gave voice to a concern that seemed to be troubling a number of her colleagues, too — the proper legal standard for judging secondary infringement in the digital age. She and others several times asked the attorneys to spell out their interpretation of the Sony Betamax standard, and to articulate why they thought it might not be adequate. (The Sony standard has usually been understood as barring secondary copyright infringement if the developer has created a product that has the capacity for “substantial non-infringing uses” that were “commercially significant”.)

Ginsburg herself said the Sony decision itself was not so clear on the standard it was laying down, because of extensive discussion in that opinion beyond the formula on non-infringing uses.