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Oracle v. Google

• Oracle tells jury “clean room” not enough to avoid patent infringement
• Oracle v. Google patent phase wraps up
• Oracle to pursue longshot claim for copyright damages
• Oracle’s copyright win may not amount to much as patent phase unfolds
• Engineers, experts take the stand as Oracle’s patent attack on Google advances

The month-old Oracle v. Google trial hasn’t had a lot of clarity. Dozens of motions have been filed over issues both great and small, with the only clear development so far being a split copyright verdict. But key events in the past 24 hours have shown what the possibilities are going forward.

First, Judge William Alsup has said he will make a ruling about whether or not programming APIs are copyrightable as early as next week. Next, Oracle has agreed to drop its longshot case for copyright damages it was talking about pursuing last week. Those developments, along with the patent trial verdict that a San Francisco jury should soon deliver, will soon make clear the road ahead.

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LOS ANGELES—Federal regulators considered testimony Wednesday here at UCLA Law School on whether to allow citizens and filmmakers to legally crack DVD encryption meant to protect the discs from being copied.

Filmmakers, video mixers and others have petitioned the U.S. Copyright Office for the ability to continue to use DVD decryption tools to copy short clips of DVDs from motion pictures to put into their own films. The issue isn’t whether they have a fair-use right to the material, but whether they can utilize decrypting tools to make the best reproduction for film-making purposes.

Another proposal for the first time calls for the public at large to be authorized to make copies of their own DVDs without breaching the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, which makes it unlawful to circumvent encryption technologies in items that you buy.

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By Timothy B. Lee

Ars Technica.com

The public outcry over the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act seems to have gotten so loud that even members of Congress can hear it. On Thursday we covered the news that Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) was expressing second thoughts about SOPA’s DNS provisions. He said he changed his mind after he “heard from a number of Vermonters” on the issue.

On Friday, several Republicans started backpedaling as well.

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The content in this post was found at http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/under-voter-pressure-members-of-congress-backpedal-on-sopa.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.

By Timothy B. Lee

Ars Techinca.com
Dec. 23, 2011
It’s as if the last four years hadn’t happened. In 2007, Google’s legal dispute with a coalition of authors and publishers over Google Books was put on hold while the parties hashed out a settlement agreement. That agreement was announced in 2008, but it attracted a massive backlash that convinced Judge Denny Chin to reject the settlement earlier this year.

So after three years of working together to try to get their settlement approved, the parties are now back in courts and at each others’ throats.

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The content in this post was found at http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/12/google-tries-to-kick-authors-guild-out-of-court-in-book-case.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.

For many months, the academic world has been keeping an eye on a potentially critical lawsuit brought by AIME (the Association for Media and Equipment) and Ambrose Video Publishing (Ambrose or AVP) against UCLA (or more specifically, the Regents and several named university officials in their administrative and individual capacity). The plaintiffs, AIME and AVP, sued UCLA because the institution was purchasing education dvds (some from AVP, others from AIME association members), circumventing the technological protections embedded in the dvds, and then streaming (transmitting) the entire movies in their online, password-protected course management system. . . .

On October 3, 2011, the trial judge dismissed the case in a brief (13 page) order. At last, academia thought, an answer, or at least some copyright guidance. Instead of being a copyright case, however, this case became a civil procedure and contract case with copyright mentioned primarily for its characteristic of being a federal law.

The bottom line is that the copyright questions were not reached in the actual holdings. In her order granting defendant’s motion to dismiss, the course never reached the copyright questions on their own merit. Any passing reference to copyright is at best hopeful dictum, which cannot be pulled out of context and mischaracterized as a “copyright win”. It certainly does not stand for the proposition that streaming entire copyrighted films within password protected course management systems is lawful.

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The content in this post was found at http://www-apps.umuc.edu/blog/collectanea/2011/10/copyright-contract-or-complica.html 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

UMG Recordings, Inc. v. Shelter Capital Partners LLC, 2011 WL 6357788 (9th Cir. Dec. 20, 2011). My prior blog posts on district court rulings on Veoh’s 512(c) safe harbor and attorneys’ fees/Rule 68.

Make no mistake, web hosts and their investors got a major 512(c) victory in this ruling. The Ninth Circuit, building on its favorable but convoluted ruling in Perfect 10 v. ccBill, wrote a decisive and clear (well, as clear as the 9th Circuit gets…) opinion interpreting the crucial 512(c) safe harbor. This opinion is so comparatively lucid that I plan to substitute it into my Internet Law reader next Fall as a replacement for the Io v. Veoh and Viacom v. YouTube district court rulings.

But also make no mistake: this case reminds us why we need to strike a fair balance between rightsowners and technology providers, or else our system will break down. This case’s real result is that Veoh is legal, but Veoh is dead—killed by rightsowner lawfare that bled it dry. Meanwhile, rightsowners wrongly assessed the legality of Veoh, but the worst consequence they suffered was overpaying their lawyers. Indeed, UMG isn’t liable under 17 USC 512(f) for sending bogus takedown notices because they never sent any notices at all., nor is UMG liable for Veoh’s attorneys’ fees. UMG’s decision-makers walk away from this car crash, muttering under their breath that the Ninth Circuit misunderstood their brilliant legal arguments, but they still get to go to their cushy jobs tomorrow. The same can’t be said for Veoh, even though it “won.” Veoh’s employees? On the street. Veoh’s investors? SOL. Veoh’s community? Kicked to the curb.

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The content in this post was found at http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2011/12/umg_v_shelter_c.htm 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

DFSB Kollective Co., Ltd. v. Tran, 2011 WL 6730678 (N.D. Cal. Dec. 21, 2011)

In light of SOPA, I am paying closer attention to transborder copyright and trademark enforcement actions. After all, SOPA is designed to redress foreign rogue websites, so the results being obtained in court today are highly relevant to the policy debates. As we’ve previously shown, a lot of SOPA remedies are already being awarded by judges–for better or worse (mostly the latter)–and some of those rulings are raising some of the same due process concerns we have about SOPA.

Today’s ruling baffles me, and I’m hoping you’ll help me understand the case and the issues. The plaintiffs own copyrights in Korean pop music and are based in Seoul. The defendant is Kenny Tran, who runs ihoneyjoo.com and ihoneydew.com (both offline–more on that later) and is peripatetic on social media. Tran allegedly posted infringing music files and album covers to cyberlockers and other sites and then linked to the uploads from his social media accounts. The plaintiffs claim Tran is “one of the biggest illegal uploaders (and free download link providers) of Korean music in the world” and his site generated more traffic than the top 3 legitimate Korean music sites combined. (If true, this crucial information about consumer behavior made me think of this meme). Tran allegedly profited from his actions by showing ads and soliciting PayPal donations.

The plaintiffs claim they repeatedly sent takedown notices to Tran’s service providers, but Tran allegedly evaded enforcement by opening new accounts or switching vendors. So they sued Tran in San Jose, California, where they happened to draw Judge Koh, the only federal district court judge of Korean descent. They claim to have served him in Australia, but Tran hasn’t responded to the lawsuit at all.

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The content in this post was found at http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2011/12/why_are_korean.htm 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

Shropshire v. Canning, 2012 WL 13658 (N.D.Cal. Jan. 4, 2012). Prior blog post.

This dispute involves complicated facts, so here’s my understanding of what’s happening:

The lawsuit involves the musical composition “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.”. . . The song is co-owned by a group that includes Shropshire and his ex-wife Patsy. A Canadian group, the Irish Rovers, covered the song. I can’t tell if that cover was properly licensed. Canning, a Canadian, uploaded the Irish Rover’s cover to YouTube and synchronized it with Christmas-themed pictures, such as reindeers. I infer that Canning uploaded the cover without express consent from the Irish Rovers. Shropshire eventually sent a takedown notice to YouTube, and Canning submitted a counter-notice. Shropshire then sued Canning for copyright infringement and a 512(f) claim for an impermissible putback notice. Canning subsequently got authorization from co-owner/ex-wife Patsy for his video.

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The content in this post was found at http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2012/01/updates_on_tran.htm and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.

Oct 5, 2011

A Monday ruling suggests that educational institutions are entitled to stream legally purchased DVDs on campus without the permission of copyright holders. A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit charging UCLA with violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and other provisions of copyright law by ripping DVDs and streaming them to students.

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Oct. 4, 2011

The Supreme Court left in place a ruling by a New York federal appeals court, which determined that song downloads are not “public performances” under copyright law. The ruling represents a victory for Yahoo! and RealNetworks, which have been locked in litigation with the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers for several years over royalty payments. And it has potentially far-reaching implications for the digital music industry.

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The content in this post was found at http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/10/scotus-lets-stand-ruling-that-downloads-are-not-performances/ and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.