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1: US Supreme Court Seeks Trump Administration Views on Google-Oracle Copyright Feud
First off today, Andrew Chung at Reuters reports that the U.S. Supreme Court has requested that the Department of Justice weigh in on the Oracle v. Google case, in particular whether it should take the case up or let an Appeals Court ruling stand.
The case focuses on Google’s use of Java APIs when developing their Android mobile operating system. Google, despite emerging victorious twice in the lower court, has had been overturned twice at the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. It had previously appealed to the Supreme Court in 2015 but the Supreme Court declined to take the case at the time, in part because the Department of Justice recommended against it.
However, the 2015 appeal dealt with whether APIs could enjoy copyright protection. Now the issue that would be before the court looks at whether Google’s actions were a fair use or otherwise non-infringing. A 2016 jury found that it was but the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that ruling, setting the stage for either a Supreme Court showdown or the case to head back to the lower court for the damages phase.
2: USA Sumo Sues After Competition Ends Up on Japanese Newscast
Next up today, Eriq Gardner at The Hollywood Reporter Esquire reports that the organizer of the 2018 US Sumo Open is filing a lawsuit against Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) over alleged misuse of a YouTube video it uploaded.
According to the complaint, TBS had asked about obtaining a license to use the footage but no deal could be struck. The organizers of the US Sumo Open then allege that TBS downloaded the footage anyway and made a 125 “segment” that it aired to 20 million people.
But, while this undoubtedly raises fair use questions, jurisdictional ones may be more important as the case was filed in California even though it’s unclear if the segment was seen outside of Japan.
3: TVCatchup Goes Down and is Probably Gone For Good
Finally today, Andy at Torrentfreak writes that the TV streaming service TV Catchup is offline and appears to be gone for good, ending a 12-year run.
The site first appeared in 2007 and was designed to function as something of a personal DVR to let you “catch up” on live TV. Though the service would go nearly live and add illegal streams of the BBC, ITV and others, it faced legal repercussions as in 2017 the European Court of Justice ruled that it could not rely on legislation aimed at helping cable providers gain access to over-the-air television.
However, the service didn’t shut down immediately and, instead, continued operating for some time. However, outages have become more and more common and, recently, it went offline completely. The company behind it has been dissolved and the company has not tweeted about the service since March. However, as Torrentfreak notes, the service has a lot of willing replacements in 2019, including both legitimate and pirate source.
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