3 Count: Scorecard

Jonathan BaileyApril 30, 2012

2 minutes read

Have any suggestions for the 3 Count? Let me know via Twitter @plagiarismtoday.

1: Oracle, Google Trial: Who Wins Round One?

First off today, Thomas Claburn at Informationweek writes that, with the copyright portion of the trial over, it appears Google has an advantage over Oracle in that section. Oracle sued Google over alleged patent and copyright violations in Google’s implementation of JAVA in their Android operating system. The copyright portion of the trial concluded and Oracle scored some victories, including getting Google to admit they considered getting a license for their version of JAVA and that they might have reused some Oracle-owned code by accident. However, according to experts, Google won several key points, including forcing Oracle to define its copyrighted work as the whole of its APIs and having a judge prohibit a reinstated patent from being involved in the trial. The second phase, the patent phase is slated to begin this week.

2: Copyright Troll Causes Chaos By Suing Fans Without Band’s Permission

Next up today, Enigmax at Torrentfreak writes that the heavy metal band All Shall Perish was caught off guard by the fact that it’s songs were the subject of a Bittorrent lawsuit filed against alleged downloaders of their music. According to the lawsuit, some 80 IP addresses downloaded and shared their music via Bittorrent, the lawsuit is seeking the identities of those IP addresses for either possible further legal action or, more likely, to send settlement demand letters. The band, however, claims to have been “blindsided” by the lawsuit, which it seems their label, Nuclear Blast, was behind. All Shall Perish said that it hopes the lawsuits will be withdrawn but will intervene personally if they are not.

3: Parody Defence Not Far Far Away

Finally today, Bob Tarantino at The Lawyer’s Weekly writes that legislation in Canada could give the country one of the most expansive fair use provisions in the world. The bill, as written now, would protect both satire and parody as fair use. Parody, which is using copyrighted material to make fun of the work itself, is protected in the U.S. but satire, which is using the material to make fun of something else, is not. However, it’s hard to know exactly how these exemptions will work without case law behind them, which will be the next step should the bill be passed.

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.