3 Count: Grilling Examination

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1: Copyright and Consequences: Google’s Andy Rubin Defends Android to Jury

First off today, Joe Mullin at Ars Technica reports that the Google/Oracle trial continued with a lengthy and tense cross-examination of Andy Rubin, the former Android chief at Google.

The lawsuit centers around Google’s implementation of Java in its Android mobile operating system. Google claims to have completely rewritten the code but left intact the APIs to ensure compatibility with other Java applications. Oracle, which acquired Java after it bought Sun Microsystems, has sued and is seeking some $8.8 billion in damages. A previous trial ended in a jury deadlock on the issue of fair use and this second trial, which happened after a series of appeals affirmed the copyrightability of APIs, is looking solely at the fair use issue.

Rubin’s cross examination was especially intense with Oracle attorneys bringing forward emails and other correspondence that seemed to indicate he was under intense pressure to quickly get Android to market and that he was aware of potential copyright issues with their use of Java. Attorneys honed in heavily on Google’s decision not to use the name Java when describing the programming language but Rubin said it wasn’t for copyright reasons, but because they didn’t have the license to the trademark.

2: Sweden May Own Pirate Bay Domains, Says Court

Next up today, The Local reports that the Svea Court of Appeal in Sweden has backed a previous ruling by a Stockholm District Court that found the state had the right to take ownership of The Pirate Bay’s main domain.

The state had claimed that the domain was being used as part of a criminal operation and that they had the right to take possession of it. They noted, in particular, that the founders of the site were all convicted in a criminal case and served jail time for their part in the site’s operation.

The lower court agreed with the state in a ruling from May 2015 but the Internet Foundation, which controls the .se TLD, where the domain resides, objected to it and appealed it. But, while the appeals court agreed that The Internet Foundation had done nothing wrong and had no need to block future registrations, it ruled that the state had made its case regarding the domain and could take possession of it.

3: How a New Orleans Tech Firm Caught the Ted Cruz Campaign Violating Copyright Law

Finally today, Jennifer Larino at NOLA.com reports that music licensing company Audiosocket has filed a lawsuit against the Ted Cruz campaign alleging that the candidate, through his ad agency, made illegal use of music they control in various commercials aired on the Web and uploaded to YouTube.

Audiosocket is seeking at least $2.1 million in damages for the use of two of their songs in two separate ads. The lawsuit claims that, in one case, the video went live before the contract was signed and that, in both cases, the songs were used in violation of a contract stipulation that they not be used for political purposes.

Audiosocket claims to have learned about the infringement from their LicenseID tool, which not only embeds inaudible watermarks into the sound recordings, but then uses other tools the scan the web in real time for infringements. That technology has since been spun off into an affiliated company named Lidcore.

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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