3 Count: Google’s Wars

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1: Google Gets Involved in BitTorrent Search Engine Lawsuit

First off today, Google has filed an amicus brief in the ISOHunt case, which is on appeal after the MPAA won in the district court against the Bittorrent tracker, claiming that the district court was right to rule against ISOHunt, but that it did so for the wrong reasons. According to Google, the lower court’s finding that ISOHunt was not eligible for safe harbor protection as it had ignored warnings that there was infringing material. However, Google worries that such a ruling could impact their business and, instead, believes that ISOHunt is liable because it induced copyright infringement, not because it ignored warnings. Google had sought permission from both sides to file the brief but the MPAA declined, though the court permitted the filing over their objections.

2: Google Must Continue to Fight Oracle’s Copyright Claims

Next up today, Google’s ongoing lawsuit with Oracle, which has Oracle accusing Google of inappropriately using JAVA code in Google’s Android operating system, must continue as the judge in the case denied Google’s request for a summary judgement. The judge said that there was not enough evidence for granting such a judgment at this time but denied it without prejudice, meaning that Google will be able to refile after discovery has been completed and additional evidence has been found.

3: BREIN Uses Court Win As Leverage To Wipe Out Usenet Sites

Finally today, the Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN has used its recent court victory over the Usenet site FTD to shut down another 11 such sites, these with a combined total of 900,000 members. BREIN, which won its case against FTD earlier this month, has been busy using the ruling to pressure other sites into closure and, according to their announcement, has been successful. However, there are significant questions about the applicability of the FTD ruling to these cases, which found FTD to be infringing because 13 members of the site also uploaded content to Usenet, and not merely point to it as the site was designed for.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today. We will be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

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