Question

What are the two competing values that were the subject of Grokster?

Answer 1

The subject of Grokster included a tension between the two competing values - supporting creativity through copyright protection and promoting technological innovation by limiting infringement liability.

Despite the considerations for offsetting, the argument for imposing indirect liability is termed powerful, given the number of infringing downloads that occur daily using the software of respondent. When a product that is shared widely is utilized to commit infringement, it may be impossible to enforce rights in the protected work efficiently against all direct infringers, thus the only alternative that can be practical is to go against the device's distributor for secondary liability on a theory of vicarious or contributory infringement. One infringes contributory by intentionally encouraging or inducing direct infringement, and infringes vicariously by profiting from direct infringement and declining to exercise the right to limit or stop it.