Slashdot Mirror
Oracle Says Trial Wasn't Fair, It Should Have Known About Google Play For Chrome (arstechnica.com)
Two and a half months after a federal jury concluded that Google's Android operating system does not infringe Oracle-owned copyrights because its re-implementation of 37 Java APIs is protected by "fair use," Oracle's attorney says her client missed a crucial detail in the trial, adding that this detail could change everything. ArsTechnica reports: Oracle lawyers argued in federal court today that their copyright trial loss against Google should be thrown out because they were denied key evidence in discovery. Oracle attorney Annette Hurst said that the launch of Google Play on Chrome OS, which happened in the middle of the trial, showed that Google was trying to break into the market for Java SE on desktops. In her view, that move dramatically changes the amount of market harm that Oracle experienced, and the evidence should have been shared with the jury. "This is a game-changer," Hurst told U.S. District Judge William Alsup, who oversaw the trial. "The whole foundation for their case is gone. [Android] isn't 'transformative'; it's on desktops and laptops." Google argued that its use of Java APIs was "fair use" for several reasons, including the fact that Android, which was built for smartphones, didn't compete with Java SE, which is used on desktops and laptops. During the post-trial hearing today, Hurst argued that it's clear that Google intends to use Android smartphones as a "leading wedge" and has plans to "suck in the entire Java SE market. [...] Android is doing this using Java code," said Hurst. "That's outrageous, under copyright law. This verdict is tainted by the jury's inability to hear this evidence. Viewing the smartphone in isolation is a Google-gerrymandered story."In the meanwhile, Google attorney said Oracle was aware of Google's intentions of porting Android to laptops and desktops, and that if Oracle wanted to use this piece of information, it could have.
No tears for Oracle
Here is the smallest violin I could find on short notice. Hopefully if enough of us play, it will drown out Oracle's wailing.
Google Play for Chrome, is about porting Android Apps to run as apps under Chrome (think Chromebooks).
IMHO the wheres and the whatfors don't really change anything. Either Google can use their re-engineered APIs or they can't. The court ruled ... they can.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
...facts in a case.
Fair use is fair use. It has nothing to do with competing. The lawyer is confusing that with trademark law, and probably should be disbarred for being either completely obtuse and ignorant of the law she claims to know, or disbarred for being a majorly disingenuous douchebag and outright lying.
You should be paying Google for keeping Java alive and interest in it high. If anything they make you money. A lot of it.
So go fuck yourself Oracle. You and your dying platform.
..without Java, easily, and I'm sure now they wish they had. They've learned their lesson, and everyone should learn the same lesson from this case: "avoid Oracle, avoid Java".
Oracle is a snake that will bite you as soon as it feels hungry or threatened in any way. Java is no longer a free standard with tools that'll bootstrap your project and help you inter-operate, now it's a Trojan horse that could spill open and burn your business, or at very least can be yanked out from under you at any time (if you aren't willing to pay up or hire good lawyers).
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
"Our running back fumbled, and he really wasn't supposed to, could we repeat the down?"
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Because you're only supposed to care about terrorism, immigrants, and the possibility of losing your job if you complain too loudly.
Shut up and get back to work, citizen.
Oracle is claiming their lawyer was so incompetent that the wrong verdict was reached.
So now the judge is supposed to believe that same lawyer when she suggests that Oracle should have a new trial.
Sure.
Remember when Oracle was a software vendor rather than an IP troll?
Um, no? Was that back when they were RSI?
From the start, Oracle's model appears to have been centered on IP trolling their own customers, making them pay for strange things like potential users and counting data collection devices as users (along with any human who ever touches said devices).
I thought they were a software licencing troll.
The API argument has been through the courts many times. The was wrangling over alternate BIOS implementations when clones of the original IBM PC appeared. API based, clean room developed BIOSs are fully accepted now. The not so distant SCO / Unix lawsuit went through similar arguments and got nowhere trying to claim header copyrights. Oracle's complaint, from the limited amount I have read, seems awfully twisted and warped, or maybe technical would be a better description. From a distance it seems like bullshit and up close the smell does not get any better.
Oracle's legal team must be aware of the dismal prospects for success so what is really driving this? Crazy Oracle CEO? Overreaching law firm salivating over more billable time? Were they all hoping to luck out with an idiot jury or ignorant judges?
I wonder how long it will take to kill this case completely.
or disbarred for being a majorly disingenuous douchebag and outright lying.
So, she should be disbarred for being a lawyer?
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Larry would rather sue for imagined damages than compete in the market. Lawyers are better bang/buck than engineers, at least in his thinking.
Organization? You must be joking..
IMHO the wheres and the whatfors don't really change anything. Either Google can use their re-engineered APIs or they can't. The court ruled ... they can.
I'm not siding with Oracle, but...
Just from reading the summary, it sounds like google made a fair-use defense.
And in a fair use defense the 'where and whatfors' you raise in your justfication for why its fair use absolutely matter.
Either Google can use their re-engineered APIs or they can't. The court ruled ... they can.
Lets say you format shifted your own personal cassette tapes to CD, for your own personal use. Then the music industry freaks out and comes after you... you make a fair use defense...
you are only doing it for music you already own
to convert it to a format you prefer to use
yada yada yada.
and you win the case
Then after the case ends, the music industry discovers that half way through the trial you started selling 'format shifting services' commercially...
This really is a whole other thing. You can't say "Either you can format shift, or you can't. The court ruled you can". The court ruled you can do it with music you own for your own use. They didn't rule you could do it as a commercial service for other people... that's potentially a whole new trial.
Similarly google, *as part of its defense*, claimed that it's implementation didn't compete with Oracle on the desktop. Then it launched a version that does run on the desktop.
Google should still win (IMO). But Oracle has a valid argument that that piece of the defense is no longer valid, and theoretically could change the outcome.
Oracle needs grounds for an appeal. I'm happy they're having to stretch this far to find some. Pity that they could find any...
That is all.
It's not a bad reason.
In this case, however, for being too much of a lawyer.
Google should purchase the PostgreSql organization, improve the database's compatibility with Oracle, improve the documentation, and stick links to it everywhere. If anybody googles with "Oracle" in the search phrase, include a link to PostgreSql in their ads.
Table-ized A.I.
So a billion Android devices is fair use, but add in 500k Chromebooks, and oh no, it's a different matter all together?
Oracle's argument is that a billion devices in a market that Oracle isn't in may be fair use, but 500k devices in a market that Oracle is in makes it a different matter. It will be up to a judge and/or jury to decide.
Government-created? No. Private org.
If you mean many of their customers are gov't entities, you are correct.
Oracle's RDBMS was actually revolutionary when it came out. Before that you had difficult-to-use DB's such as IMS and CODASYL's pasta-like children.
SQL is not perfect, but it was a big step up. SQL was invented/defined by IBM, but they dragged their feet on in it, fearing it would hurt their IMS cash cow. Oracle released the first commercial RDBMS, and it was a hit because the alternatives sucked.
You have to give them credit for that, even though they are slimy with regard to lawyers and sales gimmicks.
Table-ized A.I.
So a billion Android devices is fair use, but add in 500k Chromebooks, and oh no, it's a different matter all together?
Its qualitative not quantitative.
Listen to AC/DC in your living room a billion times with a billion different friends is fair use. Start paying your brother to DJ the odd party or rent a hall, and throw the party there, and its a different matter altogether.
Fair use is fair use. It has nothing to do with competing.
This page and this page seem to disagree.
The lawyer is confusing that with trademark law, and probably should be disbarred for being either completely obtuse and ignorant of the law she claims to know, or disbarred for being a majorly disingenuous douchebag and outright lying.
Somebody is confused, but I don't think it's that lawyer.
The case here is more like "the music industry discovers that half way through the trial you started format shifting to vinyl as well as CD".
My analogy wasn't perfect, but this is not really any better.
Oracles main argument is that Google went from "not being in its market space" to "being in its market space". Therefor it went from not harming it to harming it. And that's more than just "vinyl vs cassette vs CD".
To try a better analogy -- it would be like Apple suing me for trademark infringement for my Apple brand bbq cover business; and me winning in part because our markets don't overlap... but midway through the trial Apple discovers I started selling covers for phones and laptops...
*IF* google won its fair used defense because it "wasn't competing on the desktop" then it matters. IF that was entire superfluous and google would win regardless then it doesn't. In my opinion it doesn't matter. Nevertheless google did raise the point as part of its defense, so oracle has a legitimate nit to pick.
Sure, "fair use" is the argument that Google used because it stands up against the claims made by Oracle. If this "porting Play" had been introduced in the trial Google had plenty to blow the argument up.
Ample precedent exists for commercial use of public APIs. It seems to boil down to whether certain APIs fell under the "public" banner and the court decided that Google's assumptions about what they could use were fair and supported by the law.
The "Google Play Store" angle is weird because it has nothing to do with the core arguments. Further, the lawyer says their client (Oracle) failed to consider it as a factor. Trying to introduce a new argument in an appeal is usually hard to do, especially when it is based on knowledge that is widely known (ie: it ain't new evidence). As far as I know, appeals aren't a do-over court. Oracle's lawyers would have to argue that the judge made an error.
eh, maybe Oracle is successful and get another crack at it. The "porting Play" argument is as thin or thinner than their original claims. Don't see it making any difference in the outcome unless an idiot jury is selected in a new trial. Oracle playing jury roulette?
I think Oracle's lawyers are making out like bandits. Who wouldn't love a client with lots of money and who likes to tilt at windmills?
IOW: Oracle use some of the SQL query language from IBM and created an entire company around it.
Good thing Oracle lost. IBM could have sued them into oblivion!
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
Are we to expect whinning everytime Google uses Android for something good now?
And are you really complaining that Android for Chrome OS of all things is trying to compete with Java SE? HA! Man, what a joke.
Your famously insecure platform that you kept spending money to falsely advertise as secure, while not patching it as you should, to the point you had to be sued by the FTC to come clean about it?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...
Fuck you Oracle. Even if your case had any hint of truth to it, you have no right to complain.
There is nothing better for the public than competition to a company as irresponsible as yours.
I wanna see they going back to the courts to get owned once again... pretty clear that there are some delusional people in charge of the legal team there.
What 'market for Java SE on the desktop'? Applets were dead in the water after Flash was launched...some 18-20 years ago. Java has only ever been used to run application servers since then, there is no killer app for the desktop that had people wilfully downloading the JRE in droves. Alternately, I'd love for Oracle to point me to the humungous list of Java based desktop applications that Android is supposedly taking over.
"..One hosts to look them up, one DNS to find them, and in the darkness BIND them."
A previous court ruled Google was indeed infringing copyright; the latest trial did not overturn that, but did rule it was fair use; now if the rationale behind the decision was that Google did not use Oracle code to compete with Oracle because of different platform (phones vs computer), then Oracle's point might be considered valid. The fact that the Android runtime is built to run Android apps but not arbitrary Java code still invalidates it in my opinion, but that is up to Google lawyers to demonstrate.
If it's fair use, then we're talking about re-implementing the API being fair use, not how it's used after the fact. How that re-implemented API is used is not part of the discussion of whether re-implementing the API is fair use. The copyrighted elements were solely the API method signatures, and not any source code. If this had been a court case over patents (which is a whole other level of ridiculous, when talking about software, so thankfully it wasn't), then how the APIs were used and what they did would be at issue. The fact that Chrome has the ability to execute android application bytecode doesn't impact that argument.
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law