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Jury in Oracle v. Google has reached a verdict on all questions but one

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Re: Jury in Oracle v. Google has reached a verdict on all questions but one

#11

Post by rbanffy »

0xABADC0DA wrote: post #8
mauriciob wrote: post #4

From the comments: The form says only to answer 4 if they answered YES to 1A, Google _has_ infringed the SSO Having a Jury with no technical knowledge would obviously lead to this.

How so? Any jury, technical or not, should find 1A for Oracle. "Has Oracle proven that Google has infringed the overall structure, sequence and organization of copyrighted works?" As far as I can tell nobody disputes that Google lifted the Java API's structure, sequence, and organization from Sun, and the judge told them to consider SSO copyrightable. Most programmers think it's ok to rip off an API because otherwise…

What is "copyrighted works" in the question and can an API be copyrighted?

Re: Jury in Oracle v. Google has reached a verdict on all questions but one

#12

Post by rbanffy »

pan69 wrote: post #9
mauriciob wrote: post #4

From the comments: The form says only to answer 4 if they answered YES to 1A, Google _has_ infringed the SSO Having a Jury with no technical knowledge would obviously lead to this.

Having a Jury would obviously lead to this. Not meaning to offend anyone but; to me a jury system is the most backward way of justice. Simply grab a random group of people of the street to essentially make life impacting decisions based on the theatrical performance of a lawyer. It's like saying; Hey guys, we're short on brain surgeons, we're going to introduce brain surgeon duty. Everyone can cut meat, right?

Jurors work on some issues - whether A killed B - but applying a non-technical jury to something as far from common daily experience of most people is, to say the least, dangerous.

Re: Jury in Oracle v. Google has reached a verdict on all questions but one

#13

Post by dpatru »

pan69 wrote: post #9
mauriciob wrote: post #4

From the comments: The form says only to answer 4 if they answered YES to 1A, Google _has_ infringed the SSO Having a Jury with no technical knowledge would obviously lead to this.

Having a Jury would obviously lead to this. Not meaning to offend anyone but; to me a jury system is the most backward way of justice. Simply grab a random group of people of the street to essentially make life impacting decisions based on the theatrical performance of a lawyer. It's like saying; Hey guys, we're short on brain surgeons, we're going to introduce brain surgeon duty. Everyone can cut meat, right?

The problem isn't with the jury system, it's with the fact that juries aren't allowed more freedom to function as they should. The purpose of a jury is to act as a buffer between government and defendants. Before the government, or a plaintiff using government's power, can impose on a defendant imprisonment or a fine, a jury of his peers must agree to it. If a law or its application is unjust, a jury should prevent it's application. See the Fully Informed Jury Association: http://fija.org/

Re: Jury in Oracle v. Google has reached a verdict on all questions but one

#14

Post by busyant »

rbanffy wrote: post #12
pan69 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having a Jury would obviously lead to this. Not meaning to offend anyone but; to me a jury system is the most backward way of justice. Simply grab a random group of people of the street to essentially make life impacting decisions based on the theatrical performance of a lawyer. It's like saying; Hey guys, we're short on brain surgeons, we're going to introduce brain surgeon duty. Everyone can cut meat, right?

Jurors work on some issues - whether A killed B - but applying a non-technical jury to something as far from common daily experience of most people is, to say the least, dangerous.

I know several expert witnesses who agree. They say the jury never understands their testimony, and they just side with whoever is more charismatic. Several experts have told me this in various forms.

Re: Jury in Oracle v. Google has reached a verdict on all questions but one

#16

Post by taligent »

0xABADC0DA wrote: post #8
mauriciob wrote: post #4

From the comments: The form says only to answer 4 if they answered YES to 1A, Google _has_ infringed the SSO Having a Jury with no technical knowledge would obviously lead to this.

How so? Any jury, technical or not, should find 1A for Oracle. "Has Oracle proven that Google has infringed the overall structure, sequence and organization of copyrighted works?" As far as I can tell nobody disputes that Google lifted the Java API's structure, sequence, and organization from Sun, and the judge told them to consider SSO copyrightable. Most programmers think it's ok to rip off an API because otherwise…

I don't think the world would burn if APIs were copyrighted.

There are 'fair use' provisions and most companies would grant carte blanche to people to provide new implementations. I am actually struggling to think of an example other than Java.

Re: Jury in Oracle v. Google has reached a verdict on all questions but one

#17

Post by tikhonj »

taligent wrote: post #16
0xABADC0DA wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so? Any jury, technical or not, should find 1A for Oracle. "Has Oracle proven that Google has infringed the overall structure, sequence and organization of copyrighted works?" As far as I can tell nobody disputes that Google lifted the Java API's structure, sequence, and organization from Sun, and the judge told them to consider SSO copyrightable. Most programmers think it's ok to rip off an API because otherwise…

I don't think the world would burn if APIs were copyrighted. There are 'fair use' provisions and most companies would grant carte blanche to people to provide new implementations. I am actually struggling to think of an example other than Java.

So it would change nothing. In which case, why have them copyrightable at all? If companies aren't going to take advantage of it anyhow, it seems additionally pointless.

Fundamentally, the main reason to copyright something is to restrict others' use of it. Letting companies restrict their APIs' use would be unfortunate, so if it there is really no effect either way they should not be copyrightable.

Re: Jury in Oracle v. Google has reached a verdict on all questions but one

#18

Post by brudgers »

busyant wrote: post #14
rbanffy wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jurors work on some issues - whether A killed B - but applying a non-technical jury to something as far from common daily experience of most people is, to say the least, dangerous.

I know several expert witnesses who agree. They say the jury never understands their testimony, and they just side with whoever is more charismatic. Several experts have told me this in various forms.

>"they just side with whoever is more charismatic"

Same might be said about technical people when it comes to Google and Oracle.

Re: Jury in Oracle v. Google has reached a verdict on all questions but one

#19

Post by generateui »

pan69 wrote: post #9
mauriciob wrote: post #4

From the comments: The form says only to answer 4 if they answered YES to 1A, Google _has_ infringed the SSO Having a Jury with no technical knowledge would obviously lead to this.

Having a Jury would obviously lead to this. Not meaning to offend anyone but; to me a jury system is the most backward way of justice. Simply grab a random group of people of the street to essentially make life impacting decisions based on the theatrical performance of a lawyer. It's like saying; Hey guys, we're short on brain surgeons, we're going to introduce brain surgeon duty. Everyone can cut meat, right?

Well said. Also, we engineers let lawyers eat our lunch. Law is there for a reason, but we should dominate law, and not let law dominate us.

Re: Jury in Oracle v. Google has reached a verdict on all questions but one

#20

Post by lomegor »

mauriciob wrote: post #4

From the comments: The form says only to answer 4 if they answered YES to 1A, Google _has_ infringed the SSO Having a Jury with no technical knowledge would obviously lead to this.

But we do not know if they answered 4. Well, we do know that it's not the one where the impasse occurred, but that doesn't mean they answered it.
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