(in mobilità) Begin forwarded message:

From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.com> Date: 07 maggio 2012 21:02:34 CEST To: nnsquad@nnsquad.org Subject: [ NNSquad ] Jury rules Google violated copyright law, Google moves for mistrial

http://j.mp/KfNoNn (ars technica)

"In what could be a major blow to Android, Google's mobile operating system, a San Francisco jury issued a verdict today that the company broke copyright laws when it used Java APIs to design the system. The ruling is a partial victory for Oracle, which accused Google of violating copyright law. But the jury couldn't reach agreement on a second critical issue-whether Google had a valid "fair use" defense when it used the APIs. Google has asked for a mistrial based on the incomplete verdict, and that issue will be briefed later this week."

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If this kind of insanity had been present decades ago, the entire Internet, such as it might be, could be essentially owned by AT&T, and all PCs manufactured perhaps only by IBM. And every commercial (at least) program written would require payments to whomever managed to claim ownership of a programming language first. This kind of "intellectual property" madness is costing us billions and billions of dollars, and increasingly holding back innovation as would-be innovators fear someone coming after them demanding payments for almost every line of code they write.

--Lauren-- Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com): http://www.vortex.com/lauren Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org Founder: - Data Wisdom Explorers League: http://www.dwel.org - Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org - Global Coalition for Transparent Internet Performance: http://www.gctip.org - PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com Google+: http://vortex.com/g+lauren / Twitter: http://vortex.com/t-lauren Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com _______________________________________________ nnsquad mailing list http://lists.nnsquad.org/mailman/listinfo/nnsquad