Why the Supreme Court will hear Grokster

1. These is a stated legal conflict on the Sony standard as between the 7th and 9th Circuits;
2. The 7th and 9th Circuits disagree (albeit in partially in dicta) on the relevance of willful blindness to secondary liability;
4. The Court has these matters in hand: it has granted cert. in many similar cases historically (Sony, 1980s, White-Smith (the Piano Roll case) 1909, Teleprompter and Fortnightly (Cable / Broadcast, 1960s & 1970s);
5. The Court has a vague sense that some far-out stuff is going on in the field of “Computer Law” that maybe it should check out;
6. Law clerks use KaZaA & BitTorrent to plan basketball games;
7. Stevens and Breyer deeply dig this stuff;
8. Scalia likes anything having to do with property;
9. Souter got his first computer last week.

And most importantly,

10. The Court loves to be the center of attention, and this would make it so.