John Roberts, President Bush’s nominee for the Supreme Court has only been on the bench since 2003, when he was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. In that time, it does not appear that Judge Roberts authored any opinions dealing squarely with what most would consider “Internet law.”
Roberts was on the panel of judges (but not the author of the opinion) in the case of Recording Indus. Assn. of America, Inc. v. Verizon, 351 F.3d 1229 (D.C.Cir., 2003), which garnered a significant amount of attention upon its pronouncement. In that case, the Court of Appeals reversed the decision of the district court which had denied Verizon’s motion to quash subpoenas issued by the RIAA. The RIAA had issued such subpoenas pursuant to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (“DMCA”), seeking to learn the identity of accused file sharers.
The court held that under the DMCA, a subpoena could issue only to Internet service providers that actually stored infringing material on their servers. Because Verizon was acting as a mere “conduit” for data transferred between Internet users, the subpoenas should not have issued.
Of course, the Grokster opinion has changed the overall landscape of potential liability for copyright infringement over peer-to-peer networks. The author of this weblog will defer to more knowledgeable sources rather than speculate on how a Supreme Court Justice Roberts would rule on such a matter.