3 Count: SCOTUS Damages

3 Count Logo

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

1: Oracle Cites PTO as Silent Amicus in Copyright Spat With Rimini Street

First off today, Scott Graham at The National Law Review reports that the Supreme Court expressed skepticism at Oracle’s arguments as it seeks to get the full amount of its attorneys fees and costs in its case against Rimini Street.

Oracle sued Rimini Street, a provider of third party support for Oracle products, over various license breaches. In 2015 the jury trial and subsequent appeal ordered Rimini Street to pay over $120 million in damages, including some $28 million in attorneys fees and $20 million in costs.

However, it’s the costs that are issue. Of the $20 million in costs, some $12 million were non-taxable and, ordinarily, wouldn’t be eligible for reimbursement. However, the copyright act states that victors can be awarded their “full” attorneys fees and costs. Despite that, the Supreme Court justices expressed skepticism at the award saying that one word in the act can’t override long-held limits. A decision on this case is expected later this year.

2: Vimeo to pay €8.5m in damages to Mediaset

Next up today, Branislav Pekic at Advanced Television reports that a Rome Court has awarded Mediaset some €8.5 million ($9.7 million) in damages from Vimeo saying that the Video hosting service did not do enough to prevent piracy of Mediaset’s content on their service.

The judgment also requires Vimeo to remove all contested issues from the site and to block future uploads of the content. Vimeo must do this under threat of a €1,000 ($1,140) fine for each violation of the terms and an additional €500 ($570) for each day removal is delayed.

The ruling comes as the European Union, of which Italy is a member, is looking to pass a new copyright directive that will require providers, such as Vimeo to do more to prevent the upload of pirate works to their services.

3: EU Copyright Directive Nearing Final Form as Google Tests Stripped-Down News SERPs

Finally today, Greg Sterling at Search Engine Land reports that, ahead of the likely passage of a new copyright directive in the EU, Google has published what it says are sample pages for how Google News will look in the EU if the law comes to pass.

One of the articles in the new Copyright Directive, if it passes as written today, will require news aggregators, including Google, to pay a non-waivable licensing fee for using short snippets of content from the news site. This would obviously impact Google News in the EU, which would either have to pay a licensing fee for the snippets, headlines and photos or other content related to the article.

In preparation for that, Google says it has been running tests on how Google News would operate in the EU after its passage and is letting the public have a look at those test pages. The pages themselves are largely devoid of any content, save placeholders for images, headilnes and snippets that aren’t there. The only content present is the URL of the site and the name of the publication. Google hopes the move will encourage the EU government to amend the law before its passage.

The 3 Count Logo was created by Justin Goff and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

Want to Reuse or Republish this Content?

If you want to feature this article in your site, classroom or elsewhere, just let us know! We usually grant permission within 24 hours.

Click Here to Get Permission for Free