3 Count: In Due Time

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1: Google Won’t Face Some Oracle Copyright Claims, Judge Rules

First off today, Google won at least a small victory in its ongoing copyright case against Oracle as the judge ruled that some of the items Oracle was suing over were not protected by copyright. The case centers around the JAVA language, which Oracle acquired when it purchased Sun Microsystems and is used by Google in its Android operating system for mobile devices. According to the judge, some of the elements Oracle is claiming were infringed do not qualify for copyright protection, including 12 lines of code and 37 “specifications” for programming interfaces. Google must face claims on other materials.

2: Harlan Ellison Sues Claiming Fox’s ‘In Time’ Rips Off Sci-Fi Story

Science fiction author Harlan Ellison is suing New Regency and director Andrew Niccol over the upcoming film “In Time”, which he claims is an infringement of his 1965 book, “Repent, Harlequin! Said The Ticktockman”. Ellison claims that the similarities are “obvious” and even references critics that have attended preview screenings and thought that the movie was based on the book. Ellison is seeking an injunction against the film as well as other damages.

3: HathiTrust Suspends Its Orphan Works Release

Finally today, HathiTrust, the trust set up by over 50 colleges and universities to share copies of digially-scanned books, has put on hold their plans to make available some 140 “orphan works” where the copyright holder can not be identified. This move follows a lawsuit by the Author’s Guild and other organizations against the trust as well as many of its universities. The Author’s Guild had noted that some of the works on the list appeared to be under copyright due to various quirks in the copyright system.

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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Tune in every Wednesday evening at 5 PM ET for the live recording of the Copyright 2.0 Show or wait and get the edited version Friday right here on Plagiarism Today.

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