British Law Firm Admits Leaking that J.K. Rowling had Authored a Mystery Novel

Newsflash from your Hollywood Attorney:

A British law firm admitted Thursday that one of its partners inadvertently revealed that J.K. Rowling had authored a mystery novel, "The Cuckoo's Calling."

The Sunday Times newspaper revealed over the weekend that the "Harry Potter" author had penned the book under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.

The newspaper said it had received a tip-off on Twitter, and there was speculation that Rowling or her publisher were behind the revelation -- which has sent sales of the thriller skyrocketing.

But law firm Russells said Thursday that one of its partners, Chris Gossage, had let the information slip to his wife's best friend, Judith Callegari -- the woman behind the tweet. Her Twitter account has now been deleted.

A phone message left for Callegari was not immediately returned.

Russells said in a statement that "we apologize unreservedly" to Rowling.

It said that while Gossage was culpable, "the disclosure was made in confidence to someone he trusted implicitly."
Russells, a specialist in entertainment law, said it had informed Rowling and her agent once it learned what had happened.

"We can confirm that this leak was not part of any marketing plan and that neither J.K. Rowling, her agent nor publishers were in any way involved," the statement said.

"The Cuckoo's Calling" had garnered good reviews but sold in the hundreds of copies since being published in April, ostensibly as the first novel of a former soldier. Since Rowling was outed as the author, it has topped best-seller lists, with publisher Little, Brown and Company commissioning a new printing of 300,000 copies.

The Sunday Times followed up its tip-off by asking language experts to compare the style of "The Cuckoo's Calling" to work by Rowling and leading crime writers. Patrick Juoma, a computer science academic at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, used specialist style-comparison software to identify Rowling as the likely author.
Rowling said that "only a tiny number of people knew my pseudonym and it has not been pleasant to wonder for days how a woman whom I had never heard of prior to Sunday night could have found out something that many of my oldest friends did not know."

"To say that I am disappointed is an understatement," she added. "I had assumed that I could expect total confidentiality from Russells, a reputable professional firm, and I feel very angry that my trust turned out to be misplaced."

Source....  Fox News

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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