By the time MGM v. Grokster hit the Supreme Court, the file-sharing industry had been roiling with lawsuits for years. The record labels had sued Napster in December 1999, baptizing the oughties with a spree of copyright litigation. But the public’s appetite for piracy didn’t go away, and for every Napster that was sued into oblivion, three more sprung up in its place. Their names are now commemorated only in the court decisions that eventually destroyed them: Aimster, StreamCast, and of course, Grokster.
The Supreme Court agreed to hear the Grokster case in December 2004, and oral arguments took place in March of the following year. The copyright wars had finally arrived before the justices. The court heard first from Don Verrilli, the…