Mecury News story about Supreme Court's unanimous 9-0 ruling today that Internet file-sharing services such as Grokster can be held liable if it touts its service as a way for users to illegally download music or movies.

So Hollywood has beat Silicon Valley into submission.

The court stated that Grokster and StreamCast Networks ``are aware that users employ their software primarily to download copyrighted files'' and marketed themselves as a legal alternative to Napster, the ground-breaking file-sharing service that the courts effective shut down in 2001 for copyright infringement.

(Update: At least Justice Souter had a sense of humor: He said Streamcast made the supreme court briefs in case available P2P, although it was unclear how popular they were.)