Millions of Books Copied Without Permission in a Copyright Lawsuit for Google

In an eight-year-old lawsuit over allegations that Google violated copyright by scanning millions of books from several libraries into a digital database, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned a federal judge's class certification of authors. The development represents the latest twist in one of the largest copyright lawsuits in history.

In making the move to suspend class certification, the appeals court remanded the dispute back down to a federal court to examine Google's fair use defense.

The fact that this case is still going on is fairly remarkable.

After the 2005 lawsuit was brought by The Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers over what was then called "Google Book Search," the parties reached a $125 million settlement that would have set up a new royalty program where rights-holders would have received a share of revenues from institutional subscriptions to the collection of books made available through Google.

But a judge rejected that settlement in March 2011, saying it "is incongruous with the purpose of the copyright laws to place the onus on copyright owners to come forward to protect their rights when Google copied their works without first seeking their permission."

Late last year, Google reached another settlement with several large publishers including John Wiley & Sons, McGraw-Hill Companies, the Penguin Group and Simon & Schuster. Under that agreement, publishers were able to choose whether to make available their books and journals digitized by Google for its Library Project.

Google objected to the class certification on standing grounds and argued that there was not enough commonality among the plaintiffs in representing a class. When the argument failed last June, Google appealed it to the Second Circuit.

According to Monday's ruling, "Putting aside the merits of Google’s claim that plaintiffs are not representative of the certified class—an argument which, in our view, may carry some force—we believe that the resolution of Google’s fair use defense in the first instance will necessarily inform and perhaps moot our analysis of many class certification issues."

Read More.... http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/appeals-court-orders-fair-use-578009

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NSA Surveillance: Firefox "plug-in" Warns Users

The government is likely logging even the most mundane day-to-day computer habits of millions of Americans, but there’s a way to stand up against surveillance while also rocking out.

According to leaked NSA documents published by The Guardian last week, the United States National Security Agency is conducting dragnet surveillance of the communications of Americans, regularly receiving phone records for millions of Verizon customers while also being capable of accessing the conversations that occur over Facebook, Google and several other major Internet names through a program called PRISM. Now a 28-year-old artist and developer from Brooklyn, New York has found a fun way of warning computer users about potential government surveillance, and he’s incorporated one of the best-selling rock albums ever in the process.

Justin Blinder released a plugin for the Web browser Firefox this week, and he’s already seeing a positive response in the press if not just based off of the idea alone. His “The Dark Side of the Prism” browser extension alerts Web surfers of possible surveillance by starting up a different song from Pink Floyd’s 1973 classic “The Dark Side of the Moon” each time a questionable site is crossed.

Blinder told the Guardian that he built the program over the course of four hours with the hopes he could "create some sort of ambient notification that you are on a site that is being surveiled by the NSA."

"I was really interested in the fact that, although the PRISM leaks were a shock to many of us, we pretty much already kind of know we're being surveiled a lot of the time and giving away so much data," he said.

Upon news of the phone tracking program, even members of Congress said they couldn’t get over how much information was being shared between the telecoms and the government. Walking out of a briefing this Wednesday, Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-California) said, "What we learned in there is significantly more than what is out in the media today,” and described her reaction as “astounded.” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) said the program “represents an outrageous abuse of power and a violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution,” and the American Civil Liberties Union has sued the government with a similar complaint filed in federal court.

Separate from leaking a document about the NSA’s access to phone records, former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden also gave The Guardian evidence of Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Yahoo, AOL and others sharing private communications of customers with the government. When “The Dark Side of the Prism” is installed, users of those sites will be reminded with one of the most iconic albums of the twentieth century.

"I just Googled 'Prism' and the cover came up," Blinder said. It just so happened that the long-time best-seller also fits the mood for exactly what the programmer was looking for.

"I didn’t want it to be too jarring because a lot of us seem to be giving in to being surveiled on a daily basis. I feel like people already know that. I didn't want it to be alarming,” he said.

“The Dark Side of the Moon” was Pink Floyd’s eighth studio album and most commercially successfully, selling roughly 50 million copies and landing on the Billboard charts for 741 consecutive weeks. Surveillance, on the other hand, isn’t quite as popular: according to a Post/Washington Post poll released this week, 52 percent of Americans oppose the PRISM program.

With regards to Snowden, the American public is largely polarized on the issue. He’s been labeled as both a traitor and whistleblower and is currently the target of a Department of Justice investigation.

“He’s not a whistleblower, by the way, because a whistleblower actually wants the rule of law to be enforced,” Jeremy Bash, the former chief of staff for then-CIA Director Leon Panetta, told Politics Confidential this week. “He copied documents and he made a run for it. He may be actually aiding our enemies.”

On his part, Snowden said he leaked the documents because, “I can't in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, Internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly building.”

Earlier this year, Pink Floyd lyricist Roger Waters lent his support to Army Private first class Bradley Manning, who is currently on trial for the largest intelligence leak in US history.

Read More... http://worldtruth.tv/firefox-plug-in-warns-users-of-nsa-surveillance/

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Spying Not the Government for Brent Scott - it's the Internet Search Giant Google - Nationwide Lawsuit

Brent Scott said his email is being spied upon, but the culprit isn't the government -- it's the internet search giant Google. Scott is part of a nationwide lawsuit that charges Google with the "unlawful interception" of his personal emails.

"I just started thinking about the personal emails ... I guess not what they can use them for, but what they read, which was strictly for the receiver's eyes only. So my heart sunk," Scott said.

For years, Google's computers have scanned the content of millions of Gmails -- Google's popular email service -- in order to figure out what ads the users might respond to. Many users don't realize they've given Google permission to eavesdrop in the agreement that opens their account.

But that means Google is monitoring the emails of almost 50 million Gmail users in America. It's also recording everything you type on the Google search engine and, if you own a smartphone, Google is probably recording where you are. Scott Cleland wrote a book critical of Google's unprecedented power.

"Which agency has more personal information about Americans, the NSA or Google?" said Cleland. "Google, without a question."

Cleland said the comparison is "not even close."

"The National Security Agency is focused by law, outside of the U.S. If an American knew that literally someone knew every place they went, everybody they were talking to, where, when, and however, they would freak out."

Google is not unique in the quest for personal information. Facebook has been accused in several lawsuits after users complained Facebook was tracking them everywhere else they visited on the internet. The computers at Amazon.com record not just everything you purchase, but everything you shop for -- to analyze what you might want next.

Google would not comment on the lawsuit Brent Scott has joined but said in a statement that Gmails are only tracked by computer software.

Read More... http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57588833/google-surveillance-far-surpasses-the-nsa-author-says/

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Secretly Probes Internet Servers with a U.S. Intelligence Program

The U.S. director of national intelligence late Thursday confirmed the existence of a secret program in which the government has tapped into the central servers of nine leading Internet companies to search for data potentially linked to terrorism, espionage or nuclear proliferation, but he called two newspapers’ disclosure of it “reprehensible.”

Under the 6-year-old program, code-named PRISM, the FBI and National Security Agency have searched for emails, videos, photographs and other documents. The effort involves Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Paltalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube and Apple, the Washington Post and Britain’s Guardian reported, quoting from classified documents. Among major Internet companies, only Twitter has so far been a holdout, the Post said.

Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper confirmed the program but said the Post and Guardian articles contained “numerous inaccuracies.”

Apple, Google, Facebook and Yahoo all denied participating. The others did not respond to requests for comment Thursday night.

See Video and Read More...  http://ktla.com/2013/06/07/u-s-intelligence-program-secretly-probes-internet-servers/#ixzz2VYWTWpvX

 Law Offices of Jonathan Franklin
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DVR Patent Settlements Worth $490 Million - TiVo

Google's Motorola Mobility division, Cisco and Time Warner Cable agree to licensing deals with the company.

TiVo will be earning a nice chunk of change after settling patent disputes with Google's Motorola Mobility division, Cisco and Time Warner Cable.

As part of a multi-party deal to resolve litigation, TiVo will be getting $490 million. As part of the agreement, the companies have entered into a patent-licensing arrangement with the DVR pioneer.
TiVo has aggressively protected its rights over technology and has previously settled cases with AT&T, Dish and Verizon. Collectively, TiVo has extracted $1.6 billion in settlement money.
The lawsuit against Motorola Mobility was launched before Google acquired the company for $12.4 billion in 2012.
"We are pleased to reach an agreement that brings our pending litigation to an end and further underscores the significant value our distribution partners derive from TiVo’s technological innovations,” said CEO Tom Rogers in a statement. “Further, this settlement significantly enhances our already strong balance sheet, bringing our cash position to over $1 billion before inclusion of future expected payments of at least $400 million from prior settlements.”

Source.... http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/tivos-latest-dvr-patent-settlements-564707

Lawsuit - Google says Java is “functional”, Not Creative Work in Oracle Android

Three months on from Oracle’s opening appeal in the Android court battle, Google yesterday filed its own brief and cross-appeal.

In the 100-page filing, Google states that no matter how “creative and useful the Java API may be, it is fundamentally a functional, utilitarian work” designed for the “practical convenience of programmers”.

To further distinguish the difference between creative and functional works, Google take a swipe at Oracle’s analogy in which the fictional “Ann Droid” steals parts of J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” after seeing the advance copy.

          "A work of imaginative fiction like Harry Potter serves no such utilitarian function. Its chapter headings and topic sentences exist entirely for communicative and aesthetic purposes—not to “bring about a certain result” when used in a computer".
          "No court accepts Oracle’s premise that functional works like the Java API obtain the same level of copyright protection as works of imaginative fiction".

Later in the filing, Google argue that when a program element becomes an industry standard, “the loss of intellectual-property protection over time is nothing new”, citing examples such as Aspirin and Thermos. Google go on to claim that a “distinctive” term in regular use “must be free to use”, in order to enter and compete in the market. However, Florian Mueller contends that this is more applicable to trademark law, rather than copyright law.

Google believe that Oracle are too late to claim a reversal on the copyrightability of the 7,000 lines of non-implementing code within the 37 Java APIs in question, as it “failed to challenge the instruction or verdict form” during the trial or in its opening brief. The Mountain View company then went on to add that should the Court grant copyrightability, it will go to the district court “on remand to retry” its fair use argument.

Late last year, Oracle was ordered to stump up $1.1m by the presiding Judge Alsup, after the jury ruled Google had fairly used Java APIs within the Android platform. Back in February, the database giant called the judge’s ruling a “basic legal error” and that Google’s usage of Android was “decidedly unfair”.

Read More... http://jaxenter.com/google-say-java-is-functional-not-creative-work-in-oracle-android-lawsuit-47305.html

Google Wins Partial Victory in German Copyright Battle

The German parliament waters down new legislation, allowing news aggregators to publish small excerpts of print articles.

Google has won a partial victory in its copyright battle with the German government and local publishers. Germany's parliament on Friday passed a watered-down version of a new copyright law which while strengthening the online rights for newspapers and magazines will still allow news aggregators to publish small excepts of print articles free of charge.

The controversial new legislation introduces the concept of "ancillary copyright" to German law - essentially giving print publishers the right to license their web content for use by others. But legislators made a crucial, last-minute change to the law, allowing news aggregators such as Google to continue to show "single words or small text excerpts" of online articles from newspaper and magazine websites without having to pay or ask permission from the rights holders.

German print giants such as Axel Springer and Gruner + Jahr had pushed for a complete ban on such use by news aggregators. But the German newspaper and magazine publishing associations said they were happy with the version of the law that passed, saying it would give them control over how their content was monetized on the web.

Google had spent months lobbying the German government and ordinary users, orchestrating a protect the web campaign in which the search giant portrayed themselves as the defenders of free speech online.

While Google welcomed the changes to the law, the company warned that the legislation could still threaten innovation online.

German lawmakers had hoped the new law would act as a model for other European countries, many of which are also grabbling with online copyright issues. Italy, Switzerland and Portugal have discussed tabling similar legislation but talks have not progressed. In France and Belgium, Google signed co-operation deals with print publishers to boost their web advertising sales, staving off new copyright laws there. Google also set up a $79 million (€60 million) fund to help local publishers ramp up their online activities. German publishers had rejected a similar deal.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/google-wins-partial-victory-german-425525