[king07828]

One person's "abuse of power" is another's judicial activism [1].

MGM v. Grokster [2] effectively held that distribution for the purpose of encouraging illegal activity can create liability for that illegal activity. See MGM v. Grokster at 919.

Applied to your gun shop example, do gun shops distribute guns for the purpose of encouraging illegal activity? Proponents of MGM v. Grokster would say no and that this may be the very distinction that the court was trying to highlight. I.e., distribution for the purpose of illegal activity versus distribution for legal activity.

From this perspective, it seems Popcorn Time may not have learned from MGM v. Grokster. Specifically, highlighting and promoting the illegal uses of a product may incur liability for those illegal uses. It may not be a silver bullet, but highlighting only the legal uses of a product may reduce the chance of MGM v. Grokster from being used to create liability for a product that has both legal and illegal uses.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_activism

[2] https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=864795647667642...

This is not legal advice and I am not your lawyer.