Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, I'm sure (IANAL)...
It would
shift any burden of proof of ownership from Google to Oracle. Oracle would need
to prove that they actually own the copyright on each of the items they're
claiming were copied, rather than Google having to prove, if they wanted to so
argue, that Oracle don't.
Registering copyright in something in the US
doesn't mean you actually own the copyright. That's still down to who
created it, whether they did it for someone else, whether they sold the rights,
and so forth (just like in countries such as the UK that don't have
registration). What it does, though, is to tighten up your legal rights. In
particular, timely registration of something is taken by courts as prima
facie evidence that you own the copyright you registered - so, in court, the
burden of proof is on other people to prove that you don't.
What's being
noted here is that, where the work being registered is a collection, that
presumption doesn't automatically also apply to the parts that go to make it up.
(You may own the copyright in those as well, but you needn't. If you edit a
collection of other people's stories, say, the copyright of that particular
collection is yours, even if you don't own the copyright of any of
the stories.) It looks like, in this case, the admission was effectively made in
the registration that copyright did not extend to all of the parts, but that it
wasn't then made clear which parts of the collection were new (and therefore
copyright) and which weren't.
As per Oracle's reaction, this seems
tantamount to a late Google challenge to Oracle's ownership of the copyrights.
Google look, in effect, to be saying "We weren't planning to challenge
ownership; but now that Oracle is making claims that, by implication, mean that
ownership can no longer be presumed, they have an obligation to provide the
requisite proof that they even have standing to sue." Hence, I would suggest,
the following exchange:
Judge: So the first time that this
came into your mind was this Monday?
Google: No, they brought this up on
Monday.
("We'd noticed it, but until Oracle's arguments on
Monday it wasn't relevant.")
It also, I would suggest, would mean that
the fundamental question as to whether APIs can be copyrighted at all was now
not part of the case against Google, but rather of Oracle's need to prove that
they own the copyrights (because if APIs aren't copyrightable, Oracle clearly
can't own them). And once it's not part of the infringement case, why Google
alone should be stuck with the job and expense of arguing the matter is an
interesting question in itself. Plenty of other parties could well claim a wish
to be heard). Overall, what difference it might make in practice I don't know,
but I can't imagine it being good for Oracle. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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