Desperate Houseflies Top Sites: HumorFeed About.com I Love Bacon Mad Kane Studio 8 Ironic Times Jon Stewart Mark Fiore More linkage >> More Stuff: Direct TV Deals netbook Ad information >>		LOCK AND LOAD November 8, 2005 Grokster Switches to Automatic Weapons Distribution New York City, NY  |  Bowing to legal pressures, software vendor Grokster has abandoned its peer-to-peer file sharing network and agreed to pay $50 million in damages to various companies. The settlement follows a June decision by the U.S. Supreme Court which allowed the RIAA and the MPAA to sue Grokster for criminal activity committed by its customers. At the heart of Grokster's defense was a 1983 ruling that VCRs were legal because, while they could be used to tape copyrighted material, they also had legal uses. But the Supreme Court cited strong evidence that Grokster's software is only useful for illegally downloading music files. Grokster indicated the network would now be retooled to become an arms dealer, exempt from lawsuits for criminal activity committed by their customers even though automatic weapons are only useful for killing humans. A statement on the redesigned GroksterAK47 website now reads: "There are many easy ways to sidestep Federal gun laws. This service is now one of them." The makeover is similar to Napster's transformation last year into an eminent domain-based real estate development corporation specializing in shopping centers and sports stadiums. Google, which plans to scan and upload everything in the New York Public Library as well as the libraries of Harvard, Stanford, Michigan and Oxford Universities, had no comment.
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