Displaying items by tag: Copyright

So Google is now adding a listing of takedown requests to their transparency report to show that they are working with copyright holders and the government in the war on piracy. If you remember back in the days of SOPA and PIPA Google was one of the only companies that was allowed to speak at hearings about the terribly written law. At the time Google was accused of only being interested in search revenues and of hindering efforts to combat piracy online.

Although we have reported on many patent trials and covered quite a few legal messes (Samsung and Apple come to mind). There are not really that many that we have felt very strongly about one way or the other. We have our opinions about all of them, but in the end most suits are about money and leverage so even the losers will end up getting concessions. However, the Oracle Vs. Google patent/copyright case was one that had us more than a little interested.

Remember SOPA and how much of a stir it caused? Well it seems that we may face another round in the ring with a new law championed by the MPAA. At least that is what the indicators are at this point. We mentioned when SOPA was shelved that this was a distinct possibility and one that we should watch out for. This was right after MPAA CEO Chris Dodd made his now infamous threats to members of congress about not being there when they needed him.

About a week ago we first learned of a Russian company called Pirate Pay. This little startup that had its beginning as a traffic routing system for ISPs had come up with a very interesting way to protect movies from being downloaded by BitTorrent users. They would literally attack the torrent swarms with poisoned clients and generate what amounts to a DDoS (Distributed Denial or Service). At the time we discussed the implications of this type of protection as well as the legality of it.

Ok, we love the Judge in the Google V Oracle trail. This is a judge that has not drunk any of the Kool-Aid that either Google or Oracle has offered him. He has kept things pretty straight and even cautioned both sides on making what appear to be foolish decisions. If you remember Oracle is claiming that Google copied nine lines of code that were used to develop Android. They are claiming that Google benefited from this and also that they did this intentionally due to deadlines.

Now one thing I do love is irony. Call it a little dark pleasure of mine. I do enjoy it when a larger company (one that might be a tab abusive) finds themselves following when they claim to be leading. I also enjoy it when these same companies (no matter who they are) find themselves caught with their hands in the cookie jar. Unfortunately I am talking about Apple again. This time from a purely speculative point though.

Remember the original trial for the “criminal” copyright infringement case against The Pirate Bay (TPB) and some of the shady things that went on behind the scenes? Well now we find that the copyright industry is doing it again, this time with the legal proceedings that just arranged for all links, proxies and any other references to The Pirate Bay banned in the Netherlands. This is actually popping up right after we talked about the methods the industry will go to just to maintain control.

In not so shocking news another country has followed Britain’s example and has ordered the site The Pirate Bay blocked at the ISP level. This is the second time a “democratic” government has imposed an outright ban on the Torrent and Magnet Hosting Web Site. It represents a major win for the Entertainment industry that sees The Pirate Bay as their arch nemesis.

So the Jury in the Oracle V Google trial has reached a partial verdict. The headlines for this are all over the place ranging from Google found guilty to Google trial moves to the next step. As usual the truth is somewhere in the middle of these two extremes. In fact Google was found to have infringed on Copyright for the Java API, but not for Java Documentation. The Jury reached no conclusion on Google’s fair use claims or the claim that APIs cannot be copyrighted.

There are some things that just should not be allowed. One of them is a judge should never, ever have the power to remove a person or company’s right to defend themselves. Unfortunately that is what has happened one of the lawsuits between Apple and Samsung. You see Samsung has not produced code requested by Apple. This was a request that the judge allowed and ordered Samsung to produce. As we mentioned before, Samsung refused, but we have a feeling they did not expect to receive the consequences that came with it.