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SCO Website Using Groklaw's Content
darkonc writes "It looks like they didn't learn from the
BSD debacle (where, having sued Berkley for copyright infringement, AT&T found that they were using BSD code without acknowledging it's source). Groklaw has an article detailing how SCO has documents created by and for Groklaw on their site -- without even acknowledging the source. It seems that the defenders of the holy IP principle have hoisted the skull and bones."
Pot, meet kettle.
You can tell a *lot* about a company by it's corporate culture. I remember a post I made a while ago to my weblog, before I did a domain change. It's about PHP Consulting but it really applies to this SCO article because of the no-good-theivery going on at SCO. I think SCO certainly faults on each and every one of the following:
Read on...
We should write to SCO to remind them of the fact. Here they are bashing the GPL yet go ahead and use content from an "unfriendly" Linux related site. After this message, I am gonna "overwhelm" their `contact us' mail box.
...SCO printed on my TP and forgot to put the (c) on the logo!!! Are they going to sue me too???
cat life | grep joy >> memory
Perhaps SCO is just testing the waters to see how far they can go before the courts (hopefully) will slap them silly.
Game! - Where the stick is mightier than the sword!
http://www.linuxbusinessweek.com/story/48789.htm?D E=1
Happened last week- old news in internet time. But applicable her because SCO's financial backing literally took a bullet to the head. I think the least of their concerns would be Groklaw's stolen pdf files.
Groklaw notes that SCO was pulling from both groklaw.net and tuxrocks.com. Even accepting that these are legal documents in SCO's own cases, it is amusing that they can't convert their own documents, but have to pull from OSS sites.
If you think deeply enough, you will have no single direction for your outrage.
Or doesn't copyright apply to scanned documents and PDFs? It's arguable, as there's as much creative expression there than there is in Britney's latest coaster....
...they either a) Have some balls. Or b) are dumb as rocks.
Given their past behavior, I've gotta go with b. For a while, I was expecting ( but certainly not hoping for ) them to pull the rabbit out of their hat and set us all back on our heels. Their claims just seemed too silly not to be justified by *something*.
Now of course, we've all got a pretty good idea what kind of clowns these really are.
Still, to steal from groklaw...whew...that's just stunning in my opinion. You gotta respect the lengths these guys will go to.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
I think SCO must be too buy looking over their mountain of discovery proceeds to add a simple attribution to their legal docs website.
Too busy, too cheap, too lazy... who knows what their excuse.
Perhaps it is simply that SCO does not want to give credit where credit is due.
Subdude
Oh come on. They didn't give Groklaw credit for scanning the court's documents. Boo hoo.
Scanning didn't create a derivative work. Scanning added no actual content. Plus, as legal filings they're arguably public domain in the first place in which case they'd still be public domain after scanning.
Yeah, sure I appreciate the irony of them using the work without recompense. But compared to the ghastly irony of continuing to offer Linux for download from their site this is piddling stuff.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Said the judge? Eh?
MS had the same eh?
On the site where they are using Groklaw's and Tuxrock's documents. SCO has claimed copyright of the work.
So not only have they "borrowed" the work of others instead of doing their own (which apparently may be legal as that they are court documents, or may not be legal since the file itself may be copyrighted although the document cannot be etc... etc... ), they are also claiming copyright on the "borrowed" work.
Regards,
Z
1 in December.
1 in March.
Both people involved in Canopy.
Nothing strange or unusual about that. No sir.
Groklaw better sue SCO for copyright infringement, while there's still any money left.
--
make install -not war
This is like doing a research paper in college.
Let's say I look up some documents on Lexis-Nexus. I have to cite Lexis-Nexis; otherwise it's plagiarism. It doesn't matter where those documents originally came from. My citation must include a reference to Lexis-Nexus saying how I got this information.
If I don't do this, I've committed plagiarism. I would receive an automatic F and face the possibility of further, much more damaging to myself, ramifications.
I don't know about how this might play out in the minutae of copyright law, but in academics SCO would be in serious trouble.
step
1 - Steal IP
2 - ???
3 - profit
Sorry, mod me down to redundant if you must. I couldn't help it. I saw content I liked and decided to tweak it and post it as my own....
BTW, does redundant burn karma?
(where, having sued Berkley for copyright infringement, AT&T found that they were using BSD code without acknowledging it's source). It's BERKELEY!
Scanning a document does not give a copyright to the person who performs the scan. SCO has done nothing illegal by grabbing these document.
We rightfully excoriate MSFT and SCO when they make overreaching IP claims. We should be the last ones to make overreaching claims.
That said, the one thing which makes SCOX's claims look the worse is their own damn filings. By publishing them themselves, they aren't helping themselves in the public eye.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
Many of those documents have been manually transcribed, proof-read and reformatted into HTML or PDF documents by various volunteer members of the FOSS community, on their own time.
Now if I'm not mistaken, even things which are public domain, if you "edit" them you can copyright them-- because the document itself is public domain, but the editing, page numbers, etc are.
No?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Personally, I think it doesn't. Comments might but we're talking about markings here. This is just my personal opinion though. This still doesn't rise beyond mechanical duplication, IMHO.
I think it's questionable whether the PDF files count as a transcript which would be necessary since you would have to have a copyrightable work in the first place.
If memory serves me correctly, there was also a general consensus that
a) SCO sucks b) C&D'ing SCO could prove to be a very interesting publicity stunt c) SCO sucks.
SCO thought ESR would just let it fly to use the FUD entry of the Jargon file to further their claims back in 2003. SCO: See also Bzzt! Wrong.
Help us build a better map!
Class of '76
Generally, bash is superior to python in those environments where python is not installed.
They just shot themselves in the foot once more.
First the go out on a limb, asking for 'ALL' of the developmental notes from IBM, and now they steal anothers work.
Plagarism or not, this is shady, and I Know that i will not do business with them.(I haven't started yet, and never will)
Say the open source pledge with me,
"I love Linux and Linus,
Open source it all,
Not even a bucket of gold from her Highness,
will make me stop M$'s fall."
Check journal for info on Anti-TextBook, an idea by me.
Only if factory loads are used.
If you load your own powder and bullet into the brass before killing yourself, you're infringing on the intellectual property rights of ammunition manufacturers.
Don't even get me started on who gets sued if it takes two bullets.
This may be more of an indication of just how
deep the staffing/cash flow problems that the
SCO Group now finds itself in.
Doesn't the acquisition of most court documents
incur (1) a service fee for copies made, or (2)
the personnel/go-for to go to the courthouse to
obtain said documents, or (3) both of the above?
IANAL, and IANALA (IANA Legal Aide), but I think
that there "would" be some costs associated with
obtaining court documents, regardless of direct
involvement in the case at hand.
Also, while the original court documents would
be considered to be "public property", the act
of digitizing (scanning) those documents, OCRing
them, and indexing them for a digital (PDF) version
"should" have imparted some additional value-added
which could earn a separate copyright notice from
GrokLaw.
If GrokLaw wanted to press this issue, I would
think that they would have a sound basis for
legal action. But like I said before, IANAL.
The content isn't copyrighted, but the formatting is copyrighted under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0.
What does that mean, that the formatting is copyrighted? See this thread, on Groklaw. There are also court cases where the contents of a phone directory were considered public information, but their compilation, formatting, etc., were considered copyrighted. (I'm feeling to lazy to look it up at the moment.)
Still, does this really rise to the level of a Federal Case? Is it worth it to file suit, or even send a C & D letter?
At any rate, PJ has made it abundantly clear that she has no intention of pursing this legally. She just finds it very funny, as do I. The people crying for litigation are missing the point.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Its www.groklaw.net, not wwwgroklaw.net. Perhaps someone should review the article next time for errors before posting?
Brielle
I heard many SCO execs are suing the University of Berkley , too.
They just found out their $2,000 honoris causa PhD's or MBA's are not recognized by the United States Department of Education, but only by the New Millennium Accrediting Partnership For Educators Worldwide...
And then every other SCO lawsuit article.
Then Slashdot itself.
Either that, or they'll just have us remove the Caldera logo.
In America, you spam computers In Soviet Russia, computers spam you!
If I write a book titled "SCO[tm] Sucks Donkey Balls," that book is a copyrightable work. Assuming Congress keeps listening to Disney every 10-20 years (as the copyright on Steamboat Mickey is about to expire), copyright will last forever. I believe right now we're at life of the author plus 95 years. The point is that copyright can (theoretically) expire.
My book title uses a trademarked name, that is "SCO[tm]" That name is a trademark of some donkey-ball-sucking company in Lindon UT that thinks they own the mind of every programmer who ever wrote #include <stdio.h>. Trademarks last FOREVER, or until you don't bother to pursue violations.
-paul
Pistol caliber is like religion: everyone has their favourite, and theirs is the only right choice.
They should send a DMCA takedown notice to SCO's upstream. That would make my day.
That's by Maureen O'Gara. You should never post anything by her as fact.
She often gets a lot of the facts wrong and in this case the only thing we know for certain is that there has been a death. Maureen is the only one calling it a suicide and everyone has reported that the Noorda family is not releasing any details.
It may be a suicide or it may not be and we won't know for certain until a real journalist supplies more information.
SCO's financial backing literally took a bullet to the head
I literally don't think you know the meaning of literally
Lack of knowledge of an obscure, illogical English language grammar rule qualifies you as illiterate?
It is entirely possible that SCO's use of Groklaw's PDFs is an FU to Groklaw.
Groklaw is arguing that open-source Linux can't be copyright by SCO for a wide range of reasons. SCO knows that you can't copyright a scan of a public domain document like a legal document, so SCO puts Groklaw in the awkward position of complaining that SCO has "stolen" their property.
To be sure, SCO is a hypocritical, scummy company based on usurping the IP of other, more generous people, but they are showing that they have a sense of humor, albeit an evil one.
Lets say for about oh.... $5 Billion.
US law is quite subtle on this, because there are safe guards to keep stuff in the public domain once it is placed there (unlike in Europe).
As such something is required that is "creative", correcting the failing of a automatic character recognition software probably wouldn't count, as I suspect page numbering wouldn't.
The law to look up pertains to organisations that index US legal judgements, these remain public domain because "indexing" isn't a creative endevour (usually!).
Any commentary on the original document would of course be copyrighted. Also I think a photo of a public domain document might well be under a new copyright, but that is just the sort of bizarre result of applying distinctions where little or none really exists.
The ability to communicate clearly is, like the ability to do proper research, not valued highly by the Google generation.
IIWALWIHTFT (If I Were A Lawyer Would I Have Time For This?) Since PJ and the groklaw volunteers spent considerable effort and cash to make these documents available, might SCOXE not be liable for theft of services?
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
There was a case in Texas, Veeck v. Southern Building Code Congress International that held that there is no copyright in laws. In Bender v. West West claimed copyright on pagination, but the case was never fully dicided as they struck a deal to avoid the question. But, most of the copyright claim was stricken.
Now, the terms of use is a different stury and may restrict the use of the information gathered from the site.
Fight Spammers!
Well, you would think that TSG would at least use their own copies of their own court filings (that they wrote) instead of scans from Groklaw especially as the trumped their new lawsuits site as a better alternative to Groklaw (and all it has ATM is stuff copied from Groklaw with no attribution). I guess this is indicative of the sort of idiots we are up against.
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
[This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
Ok, now what Groklaw needs to do is put up modified documents. The first half is the real document, and the last half is a Brady Bunch script. They will suck it in (too lasy to scan the whole thing), and add it to their site.
In the court case, you then pull up their site, and quote from their copy of the docuemnt:
"Marsha! Marsha! Marsha!"
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
This is no surprise. SCO has bashed Linux and the GPL for several years now, and all that time have been still attempting to sell their products based on Linux and other GPL software. The left hand slams GPL, while the right hand sings the praises.
Its just further proof that no one at SCO has any idea what the fuck they are doing. I've said it before, I'll say it again...those who can, innovate, those who can't, litigate. And now we can add that those who can't litigate successfully steal from those who can.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
Copyright infringement is not theft.
Ya, and plagiarism is not copyright infringement. Heck in the US, plagiarism isn't even illegal.
In this case, plagiarism is obvious, infringement would take a court to decide. (It isn't clear whether scans of documents can be copyrighted at this time... They represent effort, but not necessarily creativity. Further, some courts are starting to be careful about allowing loopholes that might "relock" public domain works.)
This is incorrect on both counts.
1. Groklaw is arguing not that Linux cannot be copyrighted. It can and is (Look at the source files) Just not by SCO.
SCO is claiming copyrights based on look and feel. This is not allowed under copyright laws. If they had patents they might have something.
They don't have the patents.
They don't have the copyrights ( Novell v. SCO)
They don't have the trademarks.
What they do have is greed.
What they do have is Support from Microsoft.
What they do have is a severe lack of ethics.
2. Once a document has been scanned and proofread, it can and is copyrighted by those who do the work. I am aware of atleast one case where the infringers incurred significant legal liabilities. If you think such things cannot be detected, think again. If they have taken them from Groklaw, and falsely claimed copyright, they can easily be sued. If They have not claimed copyright, they may easily have violated the terms of use.
By all accounts Val Noorda Kreidel was no supporter of SCO or the Ralph Yarro cabal.
Please do some basic research before you post misleading information about such a terrible tragedy.
..so how do you misspell while copy/pasting again?
The point is that the scanned documents (image file) are either OCRed, or hand transcribed as text or PDF files. It is on that *finished product* that SCOX is infringing or possibly plagiarizing. If they just downloaded the scans from Groklaw, they would not be guilty of anything on that score.
1-800-726-8649 is their sales number for SCO source. Perhaps that's the best place to ask.
... In a magnanimous display of cordiality, PJ and/or transcriptionists should loudly proclaim that SCOX IS GRANTED THE RIGHT TO PUBLISH THESE WORKS IN THEIR ORIGINAL FORM, except that from now on a generic copyright statement would be a good idea, to let these guys look as bad as they act. Just a suggestion
See the second story here.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
What SCO is doing is totally obnoxious - after all, imagine what would happen if /. started to use and quote headlines from oth...oh wait!
--What's this sig thing all about then? Should I have one?
Is there any reason to even talk about this any more? I mean, is there anybody on the face of the planet, even McBride himself, who seriously thinks that SCO has even the vaguest chance of victory? The only thing that counts is the courtroom, and I doubt there's anyone left on Wallstreet who gives a flying f**k about SCO's FUD anymore.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I noticed their documents relating to Daimler Chrysler aren't complete. They have quite a few, but seem to have left out the later documents showing WHEN THEY LOST.
This company is just pathetic.
But unless Darl and his buddies end up dirt poor, this has all been fun and games. That's the beauty of corporations: they can misbehave all they want, and when they are eventually killed, no real person has to suffer any meaningful consequences.
To beat the dead horse: this is why corporations shouldn't be treated as equal to humans by the law, because they don't play by the same rules and they don't have the same motivations and limitations. It's unbalanced.
Cheers.
It seems that the defenders of the holy IP principle have hoisted the skull and bones.
You are seriously claiming IP rights in the PDF scan of a public document, or comparing the conduct with the allegation of copyright infringement? Give me a break!
Either we are trying to provide a public service by making documents available to the public to lend more light than heat, or we are as bad as they are and just blowing smoke. Public service means the public as a whole -- including the bad guys.
Seriously, by making petty bullshit allegations of wrongdoing for doing the right thing -- disseminating public information -- we lie right down next to the thing we are supposedly demonizing.
Don't fight battles on the wrong playing fields. You should proudly point out they are beginning to appreciate our virtues, not suggest that they are doing the same thing they accuse us of doing. They aren't, and we're not.
If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: I firmly believe that when SCO was Caldera and Caldera was developing Linux, contributing to Linux, and open sourcing some of their proprietary software, a lot of stuff that was used in their proprietary code was placed in Linux, and a lot of stuff that was in Linux was then placed in their proprietary software.
In other words, the programmers there had access to the source for both systems, and instead of reinventing things that already existed on one system for implementation in the other, they copied and pasted, perhaps making some modifications in the process. I firmly believe that this company did not keep a record of what was copied and in which direction.
Then, Caldera became SCO. Then, some idiot named Darl looked at Linux code, saw something that looked strikingly similar to SCO code, and jumped to the conclusion that it must mean that proprietary SCO code was illegally copied into Linux. Since IBM had access to SCO code, this was proof, in Darl's crooked mind, that IBM illegally copied SCO code into Linux.
He didn't consider the following possibilities:
- Linux code originally developed by--and belonging to--the community was illegally copied into SCO code. Darl assumed that any code present in both systems was originally developed at SCO and illegally copied into Linux.
- SCO code originally developed by SCO or some company it bought in the past was contributed by SCO into Linux. Darl assumed that any code present in both systems was originally developed at SCO and illegally copied into Linux.
- Code developed by parties who created *BSD--or by other parties not affiliated with SCO or with the Linux community--was illegally copied by SCO into SCO code, and this copying was later forgiven by the rightful copyright owners when it was discovered that both parties mutually copied from each other. Similar or identical code was later copied from open source projects such as the *BSDs into Linux. This may or may not be proper, depending on the rightful owner's wishes, but SCO never had rightful ownership of this code, and therefore was never wronged by its presence in Linux. Darl assumed that any code present in both systems was originally developed at SCO and illegally copied into Linux.
I am not surprised at all that SCO is doing this thing with Groklaw's content. I'd give it a few weeks, and you'll see SCO suing Groklaw for copying SCO's copyright-protected text off SCO's webpage..."Yarro, who will remain on SCO board, according to SCO CEO Darl McBride, was replaced at Canopy by Bill Mustard. Mustard was believed to be taking his instructions from Ms. Kreidel."
Ah HA! It was Mr. Mustard at Canopy with the Revolver!
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
Check out the MLA Handbook sometime for examples of the extensive citations required of articles reprinted in other sources.
I can only theorize the reasoning behind this is that if you obtain your source second-hand, it's possible there may be errors (or even intentional changes!) in the reprinting and any future researcher would need to be able to find these variations in order to verify your credibility as a researcher.
After all, if "Hank's Encyclopedia" quotes Lincoln as having said in his inaugural address, "We gonna go free 'tem niggahs!!!" and you cite this in your paper as being directly from the address instead of from Hank's copy of the address, you just assumed responsibility for fabricating a falsehood rather than innocently (if moronically) propagating one.
The Polskas have to have a sense of humour. Couldn't have survived what they have survived without it.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
That would be funny on so many different levels.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
She was a devout Mormon. I would give a next to zero chance of this being a suicide. I hope that her father spends some good money and calls in investigators.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Maureen was the one who called it a heart attack. It was only after a couple of Yahoo! Finance message board regulars started making phone calls (it's called "fact checking") to the county coroner's office that the suicide came to light. After this news made the rounds on forums and blogs, the family made a request "... that their privacy and the privacy of the Kreidel family in their time of grief be respected."
It was only after the suicide story started making the rounds that she changed her tune, saying that she was calling it a heart attack to protect the family, after which she had a few chioce words for those who actually got the scoop. Followed now by her revelation that it's a suicide. Journalism? Hardly.one better than mcleodeight
(Score:-1, Interesting)
You don't see that everyday
SCO is simply a Bender and is fully entitled to do as it has done.
Forget a takedown notice as well. The documents are public domain and there are penalties (including legal fees) for filing a false DMCA takedown notice.
It's amusing, but that's all it is.
Do read the WIREdata (PDF) decision. It's an excellent and readable decision giving an overview of the principles and key cases involved.
Putting legal documents in a database does not create new copyrightable content, although adding additional information may. But you can remove that information and the result is not copyrightable. (West Publishing.)
Mere records of facts are not copyrightable. (Feist vs. Rural Telephone).
There is no "sweat of the brow" copyright in US law. Originality is required. "The standard of originality is low, but it exists" - U.S. Supreme Court in Feist.
The court documents being generated will be very historical, and potentially someone, will want to make money from those documents.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
You're a bot. And a pretty goody one. Care to share your source code?
Surely Groklaw could have had some fun with this and made minor alterations to all their documents so that SCO turned up to court armed with all the wrong information and made even bigger asses of themselves?
didn't RTFA. SCO copied pdf scans that Groklaw and TuxRocks member had made of public domain court documents. The court documents are not copyrightable. They didn't copy any of Groklaw's own material, so any copyright infringement would be almost as convoluted as SCO's claim of infringement against IBM.
We are the 198 proof..
It takes a pretty whacked-out state to even consider suicide. That it's against their religioon (and would doom you to eternal damnation or some equivalent) may stop some (and/or help people talk would-be suicides out of it) -- especially if the person is on the edge. For a person who's really far gone, on the other hand, eternal damnation may seem preferable to whatever state they're in (yeah, seriously whacked).
That having been said, there's way too much at stake here for anybody to presume that these two apparent suicides are what they appear to be. An apparent suicide would be a far-too-convenient way to throw the cops off of a murder investigation.
This wouldn't be the first time a suicide was faked.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Great! A story by Maureen O'Garra "confirmed" by a Red Herring. How do we know that they're not one and the same?
:-)
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Yahoo! Finance message board regulars
Are these the same lovely daytraders who keep posting nonsense and spam to every Yahoo! Finance message board rendering them completely useless for anything but cheap entertainment?
-- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
I can't speak for the rest of the Yahoo! boards, but The SCOX board apparently had a reasonably reputation at Groklaw.. The few times I was there I saw a pretty varied mix of opinions. Most seemed to think Darl was full of it, but there were a few pro-sco diehards (this was back when SCO's case wasn't obviously dead in the water).
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
The Beethoven example is only true because the *performance* is Copyright.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)