3 Count: De La Piracy

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1: Oracle, Rimini Street Both Claim Victory After Judge’s Ruling on Copyright

First off today, Chris Kanaracus at PC World reports that a Federal judge has ruled in the case of Oracle/Rimini Street case, though both sides seem to be claiming victory.

The case centers around Rimini Street’s use of Oracle’s PeopleSoft Enterprise Resource Planning software. According to the lawsuit, Rimini made copies of Oracle’s software as part of serving two customers that were using Oracle’s applications.

Much of the lawsuit came down to a software license between Oracle and Rimini. The judge ruled Rimini had infringed when it installed the software on its computer systems to create updates but that, since it did not access the source code, it did not violate another license component. The court also rejected Rimini’s argument that they had an implied license to use the code but ruled against Oracle on another argument over backup copies of the software, saying that was legal.

Rimini is a company that provides unofficial support for Oracle software, helping those who don’t wish to upgrade to newer versions get smaller updates. Though the judge ruled on many issues in the case, others are being sent to the jury for a verdict.

2: Rihanna Faces New Plagiarism Charge

Next up today, Mara Siegler at the New York Post reports that Rihanna has been sued once again over her 2010 music video for her song S&M, this time by photographer Phillip Paulus, who alleges that the musician based portions of the music video on his work.

The lawsuit mirrors a 2011 suit filed by photographer David LaChapelle who accused Rihanna of basing other scenes in the video on his artwork. The two settled out of court.

According to Paulus, one section of the video is based on his fashion series “Paperworld”, which features a woman in plastic wrap with large “X” marks on th ebackground. A similar scene appears in the video.

3: De La Soul Give Away Pirated Copies of Their Own Music

Finally today, Andy at Torrentfreak writes that the hip-hop group De La Soul recently celebrated the 25th anniversary of their album 3 Feet High and Rising. However, due to the group’s heavy use of sampling, they have been unable to clear all of the rights to their tracks to sell them.

As such, the group decided to give away nearly all of their music on their site. Though the two-day giveaway is over, some users have noticed that, in the music downloaded, embedded in the comments of the MP3s is a link to the site Rappalata, a pirate site that targets rap and hip-hop.

It’s unclear if De La Soul downloaded their own music from the site before making it available on theirs, or if they added the comment later.

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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