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| Authored by: mcinsand on Thursday, April 26 2012 @ 11:23 AM EDT |
Yes, Judge, this is the Perry Mason moment we all work to avoid, but is brought
to us courtesy of our buddies at Oracle.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: PJ on Thursday, April 26 2012 @ 11:38 AM EDT |
If you go to Monday's
filings, the copyright
briefs, you'll see
the Oracle filing. It's docket
#956 [PDF] and we
have it as
text
also. Here's a snippet:
The copyrighted works at issue are the
APIs for the 37 packages and their associated class libraries (and their
associated source code) and the 11 individual computer program code files. These
were encompassed within the copyright registration for J2SE 5.0 and J2SE 1.4,
which were registered as collective works, and also in various earlier
registrations identified in the registrations for J2SE 5.0 and J2SE
1.4....
Oracle registered the versions of the Java platform as collective
works under a single copyright registration. This is permitted under the plain
language of 37 C.F.R. § 202.3(b)(4)(i)(A).2 The Court held that Google’s
proposed interpretation of the regulation was incorrect:
The plain meaning
of this provision is that when a single published unit contains multiple
elements “that are otherwise recognizable as self-contained works,” the unit is
considered a single work for the limited purpose of registration while its
elements may be recognized as separate works for other purposes.
(ECF No. 433
at 6 (emphasis in original).)
This principle is well supported by case law. In
Am. Geophysical Union v. Texaco, Inc., the court held that each article within a
journal was protected by copyright even though the publisher chose to register
only each journal with the Copyright Office. 802 F. Supp 1, 17 (S.D.N.Y. 1992).
The court rejected the defendant’s argument that the work as a whole should be
the journal that was registered:
This argument constitutes
imaginative lawyering, but it does not prevail. Each article, note or letter
published in Catalysis is a separately authored work, protected by a copyright,
which the authors have assigned to Academic Press. Because it would involve
gigantic expense and inconvenience to register separately each of the 20 odd
items that appear in an individual issue, Academic Press registers each issue
with the Copyright Office. It does not follow from the manner of registration
with the Copyright Office that the “copyrighted work” for the purposes of fair
use analysis consists of the entire issue rather than the separate creations of
the separate authors.
Id. at *17....
The Ninth Circuit reached
a similar conclusion in Hustler, finding that the “entire work” there consisted
of a one-page advertisement parody in a 154-page magazine. Hustler Magazine,
Inc. v. Moral Majority, Inc., 796 F.2d 1148, 1154 (9th Cir. 1986) (“the parody
is not an interwoven component of the magazine, but can stand totally alone. A
creative work does not deserve less copyright protection just because it is part
of a composite work.”); ... The cases cited above show courts follow a
practical, case-by-case approach in determining what should be considered a
separate work. Here, the API packages can be considered separate works. Dr.
Reinhold described the process by which API packages are developed and added to
J2SE through the Java Community Process. He testified, for example, that he
submitted a Java Specification Request (JSR) for the java.nio package to the
JCP, formed an expert group, and went through 30 drafts over the course of two
years before finalizing the java.nio API specification for formal approval. (RT
at 624:3-627:17 (Reinhold).) Individual API packages have been separately
authored, developed and added by this process for many years, and the number of
API packages in Java has increased dramatically over time. Dr.
Reinhold
6
testified that Java 1.0 had seven API packages, Java SE 5 had 166,
and Java 7 has 209. (Id. at 631:19-25.) He also testified that others created
individual API packages that compete with the Java API packages, and used
java.util.logging as an example. (Id. at 630:11-631:18.) Accordingly, the
specifications for the API packages are recognizable works, as are the files for
the implementations of the API packages. As in Texaco, it was unnecessary for
Sun to register separately each part of the APIs, class library source code,
class libraries, and compiler and other tools for a given version of the Java
platform. Texaco, 802 F. Supp at 17. The Copyright Office does not want this
either, and its rules do not require it. The separate creations in J2SE are the
copyrighted works at issue, not the entire platform. That Google copied from
only a subset of the API packages and did not need to copy the remainder is
further evidence that the packages are separable works. But notice
Oracle's footnote 2:
2 That provision states: “For the purpose of
registration on a single application and upon payment of a single registration
fee, the following shall be considered a single work: (A) In the case of
published works: all copyrightable elements that are otherwise recognizable as
self-contained works, that are included in a single unit of publication, and
in which the copyright claimant is the same.” 37 C.F.R.
202.3(b)(4)(i)(A). That's just it. The claimant here isn't the
same necessarily for each API. Oracle has to prove it actually authored the
APIs, which will be hard, methinks. And Google is raising the issue of proper
registration, not using the right form if you are registering a collective work.
[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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