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The U.S. Register of Copyrights says Congress needs to see how lower courts apply MGM v. Grokster before creating new file-sharing legislation.

The Supreme Court found in favor of MGM et al in deciding that the file-sharing service Grokster advertised itself as a method of infringing copyrights this summer. However, the high court did not issue an opinion on file-sharing itself, choosing to sidestep that issue.

Reuters reports that Marybeth Peters, in her capacity as Register of Copyrights, thinks the lower courts should get a chance to interpret the ruling before creating new laws regarding file-sharing. "It may be that legislation should be enacted, but my own preference would be to see how the courts deal with this at this time," Ms. Peters told the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Peer to peer networks seem ready to throw in the towel without a fight, due to the high cost of litigation. The president of eDonkey distributor MetaMachine, Sam Yagan, told the Senate he expects other P2P companies to shut down.

While other P2P companies may simply move offshore, eDonkey will comply with a cease-and-desist warning from the Recording Industry Association of America. Mr. Yagan's company has been talking with Snocap, Shawn Fanning's digital authorization service, about adding its licensing service to eDonkey.

David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business. Email him here.