Flak for Grouper file-sharing

Grouper was thought to be a safe, legal alternative to P2P, but BMG Music thinks not, the Los Angeles Times reports. BMG says it doesn't see the difference between millions sharing files via, say, Kazaa, and a closed group of 30 people (Grouper's group limit) sharing files among each other. Grouper's creators say that group size isn't the only distinguishing factor; files are streamed, or played across the Net, not downloaded from friends' PCs. The LA Times cites copyright experts as saying there's no clear answer as to what's legal, here. Grouper is one of a number of services that represent a trend in online media-sharing predicted by Net pundit and New York University prof. Clay Shirky: sharing across small *private* networks. In an email, Clay also cited as examples Groovenetworks (recently acquired by Microsoft), BadBlue.com, and Waste (I can't find a site, but it was described back in '03 by CNET and CNN).