Slashdot Mirror
Paid Media Must Be Disclosed In Oracle v. Google
jfruh writes "One of the odder moments during the Oracle v. Google trial over Java patents came when patent blogger Florian Mueller disclosed that he had a 'consulting relationship' with Oracle. Now it looks like we're going to find out which other tech bloggers and journalists were on the payroll of one of the two sides in this epic fight. Judge William Alsup has ordered (PDF) that both parties disclose 'all authors, journalists, commentators or bloggers who have reported or commented on any issues in this case and who have received money (other than normal subscription fees) from the party or its counsel during the pendency of this action.'"
Every Oracle employee will now be provided a retroactive subscription to a collection of technology blogs and news sites. Don't worry, all expenses will be paid for by the company.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
It would be very interesting if it happens to Apple too. I can safely bet Apple is the technology company that has more "journalists" in their payroll.
After all, when these types of cases come up, it often has serious effect in the market. So when there are paid-for opinions which are believed to be independent, it alters the perceptions of shareholders and potential shareholders when they are deciding to buy or not to buy. One could conceivably bring meritless lawsuits against market opponents coupled with media doom (such as we saw with Meuller) and see a gain in market value long enough to make a tidy sum when you sell some of your shares at the right time... then buy them back when the truth comes out. The net outcome might be a loss for the company, but a huge benefit to majority shareholders.
Is anyone actually surprised Florian Mueller is a shill?
Did anyone not see that coming? Hopefully, the media will stop printing anything he says.
It's also a tough case to claim something is anonymous speech when you blog under your legal name.
Whether or not it is protected, I don't think that Anonymous speech is the same thing as when a non-anonymous author being paid to give a biased opinion while hiding the fact that they are being paid to give that opinion.
This may have nothing to do with anonymous speech. When "expert" opinions are being considered in court, they must be able to withstand scrutiny. Florian Mueller is not just some random interested party, he published an article claiming that he had evidence of copyright infringement.
http://www.fosspatents.com/2011/01/new-evidence-supports-oracles-case.html
If Oracle used his opinions in court, Google should be given the opportunity to cross examine him.
Either way, it is nice to see someone rubbing Florian's nose in it. Another great ruling by Judge Alsup!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florian_M%C3%BCller#Google_vs_Oracle_copyright
Would be interesting if the judge had ordered the shills to disclose their slashdot ids too. Would be hilarious.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I don't think it's obvious that anonymous speech is protected by the first amendment.
Well you're entitled to your opinion of course but by contrast the Supreme Court says:
"Protections for anonymous speech are vital to democratic discourse. Allowing dissenters to shield their identities frees them to express critical minority views . . . Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. . . . It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation . . . at the hand of an intolerant society."
(McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission, 1995)
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I don't usually reply to gweihir (88907) either. So there.
I wish Judge Kimball or Judge Steward had ordered this in the SCO case.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Congress should pass the Rob Enderle act immediately to prevent out of control judges from assaulting the good name of IT industry analysts everywhere!
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
Maybe he's curious about Groklaw itself? While IMO they're authentic freetards, they do take highly partisan pro-corporation views that extends beyond 'free software' issues.
Florian Mueller is essentially a whore. I'm surprised that he can attract business anymore, it's well known by everyone (except maybe the mainstream media) that he's bought and paid for.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Considering how easily Google won the case, and how ridiculous Oracle's claims were, Google probably didn't really need to hire any shills. There were tons of people right here on Slashdot taking their side with no payment at all, because it was plainly obvious that Google was in the right. It doesn't surprise me that Oracle needed to pay off some shills to take their side.
Now this doesn't mean that Google definitely didn't hire any shills, but it is my contention that it probably wasn't necessary.
I don't really understand why Slashdot has got the hate towards him.
Um, because he didn't disclose his relationship with Oracle until long after he'd started publishing articles despite his full knowledge of being cited by various mainstream media orgs like the BBC. He came clean in April of this year yet prior to that he is cited numerous times (example) taking an antagonistic position against Android all the while allowing everyone to remain blissfully ignorant of who was really paying his bills. The guy is a snake.
And this speech isn't advertising
Paid speech isn't advertising? Well it definitely has a conflict of interest.. I heard about a court order in the past, that if a radio station is paid to play some song with the purpose of promotion it should state that "the following is a paid advertisement".
Being paid under the table while pretending to produce "objective" tech writer opinions is nothing short of deception. Luckily it was not hard to to figure it out even before the disclosure.
Because he's not a lawyer or a paralegal. But he apparently believes that he's still qualified to be an "expert" on patent-related litigation, and much of what he writes on his blog is inaccurate, untruthful, and sometimes downright foolish. Furthermore, while he was once vehemently opposed to software patents, he's now bedfellows with Oracle and Microsoft--two of the most ardent supporters (and in recent time, abusers) of software patents. The guy has a major credibility problem.
Wow, if Julie Samuels is a paid Google shill then she sure has some 'splainin' to do. The next time you try to smear somebody maybe do a little research into what you're talking about.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
he's one of the few bloggers generally releasing information and facts about the cases, patents, etc.
He wraps his "facts" in so much editorial spin to make them worthless to the layman which is what many of the media that cites him are directed towards. If you want facts about cases and patents it's all public record. The only thing he brings to the table is his opinions which are remarkably consistently wrong.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
Have a look at this http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120724125504129
The fact that he was loudly and incessantly and inaccurately criticizing Google throughout the trial while being a paid Oracle consultant and turned out to be completely hilariously utterly stupidly wrong about every single thing raised some eyebrows in the right places. Finally.
If you have the patience to trawl through some of his writings you immediately realize how biased he is. He has a deep unexplained hatred for anything Google and is constantly harping on how all Android manufacturers should just pay Microsoft to license their patents. Guess the other paid consulting relationship he revealed, yup, it's with Microsoft.
He claims he is conducting a study on FRAND patents for Microsoft, and he continues to write on the issue with a decidedly pro-Microsoft perspective (one appropriate for a company with limited standard essential FRAND patents but thousands of software patents). So his perspective on FRAND patents is exactly the same as Microsoft, he is doing a paid study on FRAND patents for them, and yet he continues to write on the issue like he is an unbiased commentator.
His pro-Microsoft leanings predate his pro-Oracle posts (because the consulting relationship with Microsoft is older). You won't find a scrap of writing that criticizes anything about Microsoft in his blog. When something happens that is embarrassing to Microsoft (like the B&N trail before MS gobbled them up), he completely ignores it. He sometimes criticizes Apple mildly but treads carefully, so I assume he wants to work for them but they haven't thrown him a bone yet.
He is a self proclaimed expert with no law degree. The reason he is quoted so widely is because he is known to email his blog entries to every single media outlet and until recently, there weren't that many people writing about technology patents. Yes, I find it infuriating to find him quoted exclusively in major media outlets. Imagine if there was a consultant conducting a Google-funded study on privacy writing about online privacy and how Google's practices are acceptable, and getting quoted by every single major media outlet.
DavidSell
ByOhTek
antitithenai
Bonch
TechGuys
Overly Critical Guy
CmdrPony
InsightIn140Bytes
InterestingFella
HairyFeet
SharkLaser
jo_ham
DCTech
smithz
HankMoody
I strongly suspect there are more than those listed above !!
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
It would be fraud if you claimed not to have any relationship with your employer, and this is *exactly* what Florian has made a career of.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.