MGM vs. Grokster went before the supreme court yesterday. This is possibly the biggest entertainment case to go before the court since the landmark Betamax case in 1984, which ensured that VCRs remained legal to sell and own in the U.S.

Were MGM to win, there are two potentially troubling results: consumers would lose the right to make legal copies of media they already own, and inventors could potentially be held liable if their inventions have uses that are in violation of copyright law.

There’s a good analysis of the case here: http://www.corante.com/copyfight

There’s also an excellent blog entry on the Harvard Law website: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu (via boingboing.net)

You may also want to check out DownhillBattle, a music activism site with some good information on the Grokster case: downhillbattle.org