Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Oracle Asks Judge To Throw Out Java/Google Verdict...Again (siliconvalley.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the pretty-please? dept.

Just when you thought the six-year, $9 billion lawsuit was over, an anonymous reader quotes this report from the Bay Area Newsgroup: Oracle has asked a judge -- again -- to throw out the verdict that found Google rightfully helped itself to Oracle programming code to create the Android operating system... A judge already rejected a bid in May by Oracle to get the verdict thrown out. But the software and cloud company hasn't given up. On July 6, Oracle filed a motion in San Francisco U.S. District Court again asking the same judge, William Alsup, to toss the verdict.

The company cited case law suggesting use is not legal if the user "exclusively acquires conspicuous financial rewards'' from its use of the copyrighted material. Google, said Oracle, has earned more than $42 billion from Android. "Google's financial rewards are as 'conspicuous' as they come, and unprecedented in the case law," Oracle's filing said. Oracle wants the judge to adhere to the narrower and more traditional applications of fair use, "for example, when it is 'criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching ... scholarship, or research.'"

14 of 122 comments (clear)

  1. Court motions are not news by Kohath · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Filing a court motion is not news. Appealing a ruling is not news. They are pro forma. It would be more newsworthy if they didn't happen.

    1. Re:Court motions are not news by Runaway1956 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Oracle didn't do any work on Java. Sun did. Sun invested a lot of time and money into Java, then ultimately, turned it over to outside developers. Sun still held "title" to Java, I suppose, but they did little to nothing to "protect" their copyright. Open sourced, freely distributed, outside developers encouraged to develop, and tacit consent given to use Java however the hell you want to use it.

      Let's put this in perspective. You make something, and you allow all your neighbors to use that something. Let's say it's a water park. All the kids in town come to your place to play in the water. After a few years, I come along, and offer you some money for your water park, and you take the money. With the water park safely in my possession, I start suing all the families in town for using the water park.

      Does that scenario make ANY sense to you? I sure as hell hope not.

      In my most honest opinion, Oracle has no claim to anything that has been done with Java. If, and only if, Oracle develops some new aspect of Java, then Oracle will have full right and title to those newly explored aspects of Java. At least until someone reverse engineers it, and reproduces the results with different code.

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
    2. Re: Court motions are not news by sjames · · Score: 4, Informative

      Sure, but you don't get to sue people for accessing the lake before you owned the property. If they built a nice path with the blessing of the previous owner, you may not even have the right to block their future access.

    3. Re:Court motions are not news by phantomfive · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Sun still held "title" to Java, I suppose, but they did little to nothing to "protect" their copyright.

      you don't need to protect a copyright, you're getting confused with trademark, which does need to be defended to some degree.

      Does that scenario make ANY sense to you? I sure as hell hope not.

      It really didn't!

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    4. Re:Court motions are not news by thegarbz · · Score: 3, Informative

      Your argument falls down because public facts aren't copyrightable.

      Also copyright has nothing to do with if you give something away and does not require anyone to keep anything a secret. You don't give away a copyright, you give away a copy which was within your right to do as you see fit. It's right there in the title "copyright", you retain the rights to decide how copies are produced.

      I took a photo of an oil refinery once. It was a nice big panorama. I published it on my website in full resolution for all to see and enjoy. I was contacted by the refinery who wanted to use the photo for all internal publications. I said sure and handed over the original files. I happily gave those to the employees too. Then they printed off and framed 100 of these at a vendor presentation without asking me. All good I'm fine with that. 3 months later I found it on the website of an EPCM contractor. I sent them a strongly worded letter that they were using copyrighted work in a commercial setting without license or permission from the copyright owner. That got taken down very quickly.

      You see copyright owners don't need to give express permission for each use but can always reserve the right to do so. Just because something is out there doesn't mean it's free of copyright.

    5. Re:Court motions are not news by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

      Let's put this in perspective.

      A better way would be to use an access road as an example. The API is a way to access the thing. Access was given away. The law says you can't just close an access road.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    6. Re: Court motions are not news by Areyoukiddingme · · Score: 2

      I believe there was this exact situation where a previous owner had a path thru their private property to the beach in northern california. They sold the land and the new owner put in a gate blocking access. New owner had to remove the gate under court order under some legal argument.

      It's called a public easement, and it doesn't require any judge shopping to get it recognized. It has precedents in English common law (on which US law is based and on which it depends) dating back four or five hundred years.

  2. Oracle, the company most likely to make you .... by haruchai · · Score: 5, Funny

    ....feel that M$, SCO and Apple aren't such a bad bunch after all

    --
    Pain is merely failure leaving the body
  3. What goes around, might comer around... by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Oracle wants the judge to adhere to the narrower and more traditional applications of fair use, "for example, when it is 'criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching ... scholarship, or research.'"

    Oracle better watch what they ask for. A greedy company this size, I imagine they have some questionable skeletons in their closet - somewhere. Setting a precedent like this might come back to bite them on the ass. [Of course, that would be delicious for the rest of us.]

    --
    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  4. Re: NUKE ORACLE by WarJolt · · Score: 3, Insightful

    We were too busy watching SCO go bankrupt. Now we can watch oracle.

  5. Spin article? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "Google rightfully helped itself to Oracle programming code"... no, the court found that the APIs definitions do not constitute code. Which is absolutely right.
    The few lines of actual code that were the same (you know, code, the stuff that converts to machine code that runs on the processor), was so insignificant as to be nothing.

    Oracle have lied, spun, deceived, all the way through this. If the judge/jury had found any different then Oracle would own Dalvik, the VM written separately by a different group of people, from scratch, simply because it implements the same API and competes with Oracles more recent purchase of Sun, which gave it Java.

    "Google, said Oracle, has earned "

    Google earn nothing from Android, it's given away free to handset makers, they make money on the Google Play bundle which they license to manufacturers and on the online services and advertising sold to Android customers.

    "Oracle wants the judge to adhere to the narrower and more traditional applications of fair use"

    He did, Oracle did not invent SQL, they implemented their own version of it.
    WABI, the windows clone on Sun kit, owned by Oracle, they did not violate Microsoft's copyright, Sun made their own version of it.

    QUIT FOOKING LYING ORACLE.

  6. This skit sounds familiar by PPH · · Score: 4, Funny

    Oracle: None shall pass.

    Google: Now stand aside worthy adversary.

    Oracle: 'Tis but a scratch.

    Google: A scratch? Your arm's off.

    Oracle: I've had worse.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
    1. Re:This skit sounds familiar by phantomfive · · Score: 2

      It's been pretty clear since around February that this would make its way back to the appellate court. I don't think the judge took the case particularly clearly (as soon as it was over, he said, "Yeah, I know you're going to appeal"), although he did make a fairly strong argument that may have some influence on the appellate court.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  7. Java should be paying the C people by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Java copied the data type names from C and other terminology and syntax.

    Which is more than just the api, but they stole that too. Java mimicks C in the same use of expressions, assignments, curly braces and the semi-colon.

    If we are going to retroactivately put a copyright on API, we need to do it all the way down from the top of the stack of turtles and not cherry pick only what Oracle wants, but what also by that interpretation that Oracle stole too.