Morpheus averages about 10 million users per month, Comscore reported.
The music and movie industries said they would appeal yesterday's decision to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
"Businesses that intentionally facilitate massive piracy should not be able to evade responsibility for their actions," said RIAA chief executive Hilary Rosen. "We disagree with the district court's decision that these services are not liable for the massive illegal piracy that their systems encourage."
The plaintiffs said the decision reaffirmed that sharing and copying copyrighted material is illegal. Further, Morpheus and Grokster quite likely know that their systems enable copyright infringement and use it to lure advertising to their sites, the judge said. Those facts will support overturning the decision on appeal, said David Kendall, lawyer for the MPAA.
"When a user sits down to use Grokster or Morpheus, he or she has the very same experience as Napster," Kendall said. "That facilitation of piracy makes them liable. The distinction between central indexing and outsourcing one level away we don't believe -- and the judge disagreed with us -- we don't believe is legally significant enough to allow them to escape liability."
Gray and Stanford University law professor Lawrence Lessig said the ruling probably will hold up. Further, Lessig pointed out, Wilson's ruling put the ball back in the hands of lawmakers, which Lessig applauded.
"When technology changes the way content is distributed, it is up to Congress and not the courts" to make the laws, Lessig said.
"Hollywood sought to control what innovators can make available to consumers," said Cindy Cohn, legal director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which represents Morpheus. "This ruling makes clear that technology companies can provide general purpose tools without fear of copyright liability."
