Free for a Fee

The trial in the dispute between Oracle and Google over the use of Java technology in the Android operating system is over, and the greatly anticipated ruling on copyright in the Java Application Programming Interface (API) has issued. The court ruled that the elements of the Java API, including the structure, sequence and organization, are not protected by copyright. It is important to note that the court did not rule that no elements of an API may be protected by copyright. Although broad in its implications, the opinion is fact-specific to the Java API.

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The content in this post was found at http://newmedialaw.proskauer.com/2012/06/06/oracle-v-google-judge-writes-the-book-on-software-programming-copyright-for-now-anyway/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NewMediaAndTechnologyLaw+%28New+Media+and+Technology+Law%29 and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.

In a jury room in San Francisco, jurors in Oracle, Inc. v. Google, Inc. have been toiling over complicated issues related to the copyrightability of the Java computer programming language, and they may well return a verdict before the ink is dry on this post. We’ll write more about that case, which the judge has dubbed “the World Series of technology litigation,” when the verdict is in. Meanwhile, the jury and the judge in Oracle v. Google have been lapped by the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, which ruled on May 2 that, under the law of the European Union, the functionality of a computer program and computer programming language are not protected by copyright. Suffice to say for now that there are significant similarities between these two disputes. So much so, in fact, that on May 3, the judge in Oracle v. Google asked the parties to submit briefs addressing the EU Court of Justice ruling.

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The content in this post was found at http://newmedialaw.proskauer.com/2012/05/07/european-court-of-justice-rules-on-copyright-status-of-computer-programming-languages-and-functionality/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NewMediaAndTechnologyLaw+%28New+Media+and+Technology+Law%29 and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.

The United States government has agreed to defer its controversial prosecution of UK college student Richard O’Dwyer on copyright infringement charges, allowing the UK government to drop the extradition proceedings against him.

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The content in this post was found at http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/11/uk-tv-shack-admin-wont-face-trial-in-us-on-copyright-charges/ and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.

Pandora CEO Joe Kennedy told Congress today, in no uncertain terms, that his business is in danger from high copyright royalty rates. But his plea fell on unsympathetic ears.

At a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee, key representatives were not only unmoved by Pandora, they were more interested in raising the royalties paid by terrestrial radio to musicians (radio currently doesn’t pay royalties at all.)

Pandora, by contrast, pays about half its revenue in copyright royalties. Today, Kennedy compared those fees to satellite radio, which pays about 7.5 percent of its revenue, and cable radio, which pays 15 percent.

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The content in this post was found at http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/11/pandoras-internet-radio-bill-hits-a-wall-of-opposition-in-congress/ and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.

The Center for Copyright Information, which help ISPs punish Internet copyright infringers by administering a “six strikes” warning system, was scheduled to start up the operation before the end of this year.

But today CCI announced that the rollout will be delayed at least a few months, until “early 2013.” The reason given: damage from Hurricane Sandy, “which affected our testing schedules.”

CCI Executive Director Jill Lesser wrote in a blog post:

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The content in this post was found at http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/11/six-strikes-copyright-enforcement-postponed-until-2013/ and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.

Yvette Joy Liebesman and Benjamin Wilson, The Mark of a Resold Good, 20 George Mason L. Rev. 157 (2012)

Our article, recently published in the George Mason Law Review, concerns mark owners’ attempts at stifling the online resale of their goods. Over the past ten years, casual resellers have migrated from garage sales, swap meets and consignment stores to online sites such as eBay and Craigslist. What were once minor side hobbies have, in many instances, become lucrative businesses. Today, there are hundreds of books available about selling goods online, every month 30 million new ads are posted on Craigslist, and every day six million new listings are published on eBay. These goods—when genuine? should be protected by the first sale doctrine, a well-known defense to infringement claims that applies across patent, copyright, and trademark law. Simply stated, once a manufacturer sells a product, it may not interfere with future sales of that particular good.

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The content in this post was found at http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2012/12/useful_article.htm and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.

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The content in this post was found at http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/12/fox-asks-appeals-court-to-stop-dishs-ad-skipping-dvr-right-now/ and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.

By Eric Goldman

National Football Scouting, Inc. v. Rang, 11-cv-5762-RBL (W.D. Wash. Dec. 13, 2012)

Individual numbers aren’t copyrightable, no matter how much work or judgment went into producing them. This proposition seems so obvious, I feel silly even mentioning it. A number is like a word in a sentence: it could be strung together with other elements into a copyrightable work, but standing alone, it’s too small to constitute “an original work of authorship.” And, of course, we’re always free to reuse any number we want in our own expression.

Yet, despite this common-sense baseline, we have a burgeoning body of caselaw indicating the opposite, including this ruling–one of the cleanest cases to date articulating the proposition that a single number (e.g., “42”) can, by itself, be copyrightable. The court nevertheless finds for the defendant on fair use–leaving this yucky ruling on the copyrightability of individual numbers hanging out there, just waiting for plaintiff misuse.

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The content in this post was found at http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2012/12/when_will_we_gi.htm and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.

SAN JOSE, California—It’s been five years since Stephanie Lenz, angry that a video of her son dancing to a Prince song was taken down from YouTube, reached out to the lawyers at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Ultimately, Lenz worked with EFF lawyers to sue Universal Music, the company that initiated the takedown.

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The content in this post was found at http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/10/after-five-years-dancing-baby-youtube-takedown-lawsuit-nears-a-climax/ and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.

It is a common practice for Web site providers who accept submissions of user-generated content to include a license provision in their “Terms of Use” to obtain rights to use the content. Rather than relying on the uncertain scope of an implied license, the provider can clarify, and hopefully avoid disputes over, the scope of its right to use the user’s work. A typical copyright license conveys to the provider a broad, non-exclusive license to reproduce, edit, modify and otherwise use the user-generated content, while implicitly (and in some cases, explicitly) providing that the ownership of the copyright in such content is retained by the user.  The use of a “clickwrap” agreement to convey a non-exclusive license is generally well-accepted and non-controversial.

However, under Copyright Act Section 501, a non-exclusive licensee may not bring an action for copyright infringement. See, e.g.,  HyperQuest, Inc. v. N’Site Solutions, Inc., 632 F.3d 377 (7th Cir. Jan. 19, 2011). Accordingly, a Web site provider that seeks to litigate based on an improper use of user-generated content may need more. They may in fact need an exclusive license or an actual transfer of ownership in the underlying copyright.  The question is, can one obtain an exclusive license or assignment of copyright through online terms of use?

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The content in this post was found at http://newmedialaw.proskauer.com/2012/12/20/assignment-of-copyright-through-terms-of-use-does-e-sign-make-it-ok-a-tool-for-b2b-sites-dealing-with-unauthorized-access-to-their-content/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NewMediaAndTechnologyLaw+%28New+Media+and+Technology+Law%29 and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.