I've been a little discouraged by some of the evaluations of MGM vs Grokster from the copyfighter side of the fence. For instance, problematic worst case scenarios:

• Vaidhyanathan claims that Google is now at risk for caching web pages and offering search services due to this ruling. I'm not a lawyer, so perhaps I'm wrong in my reading of the rulings, but it's not clear to me how Google is inducing copyright infringement with its basic search services. Granted, as Vaidhyanathan has pointed out, Google Print is at risk in a post-Grokster world. However, I would argue that Google Print was at equally at risk in a post-MP3.com world without a Grokster ruling.
• Porter and Rife fear that universities may be at risk, even though the main opinion delivered by Souter clearly supports P2P use in universities by describing P2P's beneficial use in that specific context: "Given these benefits in security, cost, and efficiency, peer-to-peer networks are employed to store and distribute electronic files by universities, government agencies, corporations, and libraries, among others" (2). Even without that statement, it seems a far reach to imagine that any lawsuit against a university based on inducement theory would be seen as anything other than frivolous.

Notably, Porter and Rife borrow from the rhetoric of the EFF's announcement title, describing the potential "chilling effect" that Grokster stimulated lawsuits could have. So I think we--copyfighters--have to be careful not to create our own rhetorical FUD surrounding this case. Then there's the question of fairness. Copyright owners, in my opinion, have a viable complaint against these business models built completely on encouraging illegal use of copyrighted materials. Logie objects to the "the actual patterns of usage" standard laid out by Ginsberg. Ginsberg, Rhenquist and Kennedy weren't convinced by the evidence offered by Grokster. I personally haven't used Grokster, but if it's anything like the other file sharing networks marketed for infringement, I suspect that Grokster and Streamcast deserve, as Logie objects, "an overwhelmingly negative assessment." So I disagree with Logie, not because I like the fact that the balance has been shifted more in favor of protectionists by this ruling, but because the non-infringing capability standard of Sony Betamax just doesn't work here.

So let's consider the positive outcomes associated with this ruling:

• As Fred von Lohmann points out, "There is reason to celebrate in today's ruling. It could have been much worse. As many have noted, the Court rejected many of the more extreme positions that the entertainment industry argued for in the courts below. As discussed below, the Court left intact several important legal bulwarks for innovators. While the Court didn't shore them up, it also didn't tear them down." (read the rest of Lohmann's analysis, some positive/some negative).
• The Induce Act will no longer be on the table. A lot of people who were supporting this act, or would have eventually supported it, will now be satisfied with the Grokster ruling. Without MGM vs Grokster, imagine what the Induce Act could have looked like as passed legislation. Given the Supreme Court's previous willingness to support Congress in Eldred vs Ashcroft, a ruling in a Supreme Court case in reference to the Induce Act (one could imagine it would be challenged) could have easily resulted in a much worse revision of Sony Betamax.
• Despite naysayers to the contrary, the "inducement theory" standard could stimulate growth in non-infringing P2P business models where venture capitalists would have fear to tread before.
• P2P will begin to be associated more with non-infringing use, rather than the negative connotations associated with it now.
• Businesses that have relied on promoting infringing use may find a way to also stimulate non-infringing use (knowing that users may use it otherwise), thus providing the necessary evidence to supply a legal "pattern of usage." While I'm not personally concerned about their continued success, if the current file sharing services that promote infringement will move toward promoting non-infringing use, this is good for the development of P2P.
• Existing popular P2P technologies with substantial non-infringing use--BitTorrent, for example--now enjoy the protection of this ruling.