Timeline of Oracle v. Google and the docket files
Issue: whether Oracle can claim a copyright on Java APIs and, if so, whether Google infringes these copyrights.
Tag: copyright
Copyright Law of the Peoples Republic of China
(Adopted at the 15th Meeting of the Standing Committee of the Seventh National People’s Congress on September 7, 1990 and promulgated by order No.31 of the President of the People’s Republic of China on September 7, 1990; amended according to the Decision on Amending the Copyright Law of the People’s Republic of China at the 24th Meeting of the Standing Committee of the Ninth National People’s Congress on October 27, 2001)
PhD Dissertation – PRC Copyright Reform
PhD Dissertation:
China’s Copyright Reform for the Digitized World:
Lessons and Prospects
中國的數字版權法改革：經驗與展望
DONG HAO
KEYWORDS
Copyright, Legal Reform, Legal Transplantation, Right of Communication through Information Networks, ISP Liability, Intangible Medium, Public Domain
ABSTRACT
This thesis tries to answer the following basic questions: can we use moral reasons to justify specific suggestions or policy initiatives? Can we summarize deep-seated reasons underlying the surface of the laws? Why did the lawmakers make mistakes? What lessons we should learn from the first round of the Chinese copyright law reform? Apart from the uncertain notion of “balance of interests”, can we identify any other more objective approaches to assess success or otherwise of the legal reform?
Based on the review of the nature and features of Chinese copyright laws, this thesis reviews the first round of copyright reform for the digital age and summarizes lessons to be learned therefrom. The thesis also proposes further legal reform incorporating the theory of “intangible medium”, and suggests use of the theory of de facto public domain as a standard to assess proposals of legal reform, i.e. a good and balanced law for copyright protection in the digitized age should be pushing the de jure public domain closer to the de facto public domain…
点击下载论文摘要和目录Copyright © 2012 DONG HAO All Rights Reserved.
技术措施不是权利
简单地讲，一句话
技术措施不是权利，破坏技术措施构成侵权是因为相关行为人影响了版权人对作品的发行予以绝对控制的权利
有人问我：
关于信息网络传输中的技术措施，我一直不太清楚。这是一项独立的权利吗？是什么性质的呢？属于版权的一种， 还是独立的类型？专门开发破解他人技术措施的软件并提供给公众，是否构成侵犯“ 技术措施权利”呢？破坏了他人的技术措施，而进行合理使用的行为，是否构成侵权？面是一道司法考试题，题中的问题正是我的疑问所在。
The Jailbreaking Exemption and Apple Peel 520
As it has been known by all creatures on earth (maybe except lawyers), the U.S. Library of Congress issued a statement on Monday that legalized “jailbreaking” wireless telephone handsets.
It is no doubt a good news for jailbreakers, the unauthorized App developers, as well as iPhone buyers. Now you can strut up to the black corner of the computer arcade, looking straight inside the eyes of the guy who knows how to satisfy your desire (of anything that Jobs don’t want you do, such as watching flash video), and speak laudly: "break it, please."
"Wait, wait! It’s an iPod … OK … if you like to call it iTouch, then it is an iTouch… It’s not an iPhone, I mean … not a telephone handset."
"What?"
Let’s stop the drama and go back to the law:
At least from the literal meaning of the newly annouced exemption, iTouch owners may be excluded from the benificiaries. Here is the fulltext of the exemption:
… Persons making noninfringing uses of the following six classes of works will not be subject to the prohibition against circumventing access controls (17 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1)) until the conclusion of the next rulemaking.
…
(2) Computer programs that enable wireless telephone handsets to execute software applications, where circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of enabling interoperability of such applications, when they have been lawfully obtained, with computer programs on the telephone handset.
…
Is an iTouch a "wireless telephone handset"? I don’t know. At least Apple, even before such exemption promulgated, has already said it isn’t a telephone – it is a great iPod, a pocket computer and a game player, but not a telephone… because only iPhone will be a telephone. (How about iPad 3G? Too big to be a "handset"?)
Statutory Damages Flexible
Represented by Professor Charles Nesson, Joel Tenenbaum pulled one back in his P2P downloading case, in which he was sentenced $675,000 dollars statutory damages to the copyright owners.
I was sitting in the court when Professor Nesson presented his motion of either placing a new trial or granting a remittitur. Briefly, Charlie’s argument is: 675,000 dollars is unconstitutionally high, and therefore instructing the jury that maximum amount should be a mistrial.
After five months awaiting, Judge Nancy Gertner agreed Joel’s motion of remittitur by reducing the damages Joel owes to $67,500 – one-tenth of the original one. In her ruling, she wrote:
Reducing the jury’s $675,000 award also sends another no less important message: The Due Process Clause does not merely protect large corporations, like BMW and State Farm, from grossly excessive punitive awards. It also protects ordinary people like Joel Tenenbaum.
Still, for each song, Joel has to pay $2,250 (USD), and if my memory serves, upon what is the appropriate amount of damages, "30 Dollars", Charlie said after the hearing.
ICP License Renewed and ISP Liability Released
The game of “Spoting the Difference" starts again!
Google’s ICP license renewed. See the captured today’s Google.cn web page below (left), and compare it with the page in last week (right).
| Google.cn on 9 July 2010: |
Google.cn on 4 July 2010: |
Exactly as what I predicted, Google is trying to make Google.cn being a non-search engine website. It now places "Music", "Translation" and "Shopping" at the web page. These are what Google wishes to keep on running in China. While the search engine service of Google.cn is replaced by a link to google.com.hk. Legally speaking, Google.cn is not providing search engine service currently. It is merely a link to another website. Just like the links added in any of our own web posts.
中国1990著作权法中英文版
NOTE: Please DO NOT quote this text for current legal cases because it has been amended tremendously twice by the 2001 Amendment of Copyright Law and the 2010 Amendment of Copyright Law. I republish it hereby merely for the purpose of historical ressearch.
注意：本法已在2001年 和2010年被两次修订，许多条文已经改变，不能再适用。我贴在这里只是为了方便历史研究的回顾。
日本著作权法[2006]及英文翻译
此为日本《著作权法》（2006年修订）及官方英文译本。此外，日本国会于2009年6月12日通过著作权法修正案，点此看修订的内容。
文本来源：http://www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/
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著作権法
法令番号：昭和四十五年法律第四十八号 改正： 平成十八年法律第百二十一号 辞書バージョン:2.0 翻訳日:平成21年4月1日
The Statute of Anne 1710
The Statute of Anne; April 10, 1710
8 Anne, c. 19 (1710)
An act for the encouragement of learning, by vesting the copies of printed books in the authors or purchasers of such copies, during the times therein mentioned.
I. Whereas printers, booksellers, and other persons have of late frequently taken the liberty of printing, reprinting, and publishing, or causing to be printed, reprinted, and published, books and other writings, without the consent of the authors or proprietors of such books and writings, to their very great detriment, and too often to the ruin of them and their families: for preventing therefore such practices for the future, and for the encouragement of learned men to compose and write useful books; may it please your Majesty, that it may be enacted, and be it enacted by the Queen’s most excellent majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons, in this present parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same;
II. That from and after the tenth day of April, one thousand seven hundred and ten, the author of any book or books already printed, who hath not transferred to any other the copy or copies of such book or books, share or shares thereof, or the bookseller or booksellers, printer or printers, or other person or persons, who hath or have purchased or acquired the copy or copies of any book or books, in order to print or reprint the same, shall have the sole right and liberty of printing such book and books for the term of one and twenty years, to commence from the said tenth day of April, and no longer; and That the author of any book or books already composed, and not printed and published, or that shall hereafter be composed, and his assignee or assigns, shall have the sole liberty of printing and reprinting such book and books for the term of fourteen years, to commence from the day of the first publishing the same, and no longer; and That if any other bookseller, printer or other person whatsoever, from and after the tenth day of April, one thousand seven hundred and ten, within the times granted and limited by this act, as aforesaid, shall print, reprint, or import, or cause to be printed, reprinted, or imported, any such book or books, without the consent of the proprietor or proprietors thereof first had and obtained in writing, signed in the presence of two or more credible witnesses; or knowing the same to be so printed or reprinted, without the consent of the proprietors, shall sell, publish, or expose to sale, or cause to be sold, published, or exposed to sale, any such book or books, without such consent first had and obtained, as aforesaid: then such offender or offenders shall forfeit such book or books, and all and every sheet or sheets, being part of such book or books, to the proprietor or proprietors of the copy thereof, who shall forthwith damask, and make waste paper of them; and further, That every such offender or offenders shall forfeit one penny for every sheet which shall be found in his, her, or their custody, either printed or printing, published, or exposed to sale, contrary to the true intent and meaning of this act; the one moiety thereof to the Queen’s most excellent majesty, her heirs and successors, and the other moiety thereof to any person or persons that shall sue for the same, to be recovered in any of her Majesty’s courts of record at Westminister, by action of debt, bill, plaint, or information, in which no wager of law, essoin, privilege, or protection, or more than one imparlance shall be allowed. II. And whereas many persons may through ignorance offend against this act, unless some provision be made, whereby the property in every such book, as is intended by this act to be secured to the proprietor or proprietors thereof, may be ascertained, as likewise the consent of such proprietor or proprietors for the printing or reprinting of such book or books may from time to time be known; be it therefore further enacted by the authority aforesaid,
That nothing in this act contained shall be construed to extend to subject any bookseller, printer, or other person whatsoever, to the forfeitures or penalties therein mentioned, for or by reason of the printing or reprinting of any book or books without such consent, as aforesaid, unless the title to the copy of such book or books hereafter published shall, before such publication, be entered in the register book of the company of stationers, in such manner as hath been usual, which register book shall at all times be kept at the hall of the said company, and unless such consent of the proprietor or proprietors be in like manner entered as aforesaid, for every of which several entries, six pence shall be paid, and no more; which said register book may, at all seasonable and convenient time, be resorted to, and inspected by any bookseller, printer, or other person, for the purposes before-mentioned, without any fee or reward; and the clerk of the said company of stationers shall, when and as often as thereunto required, give a certificate under his hand of such entry or entries, and for every such certificate may take a fee not exceeding six pence.
United States Copyright Act of 1909
From: http://law.copyrightdata.com/, this text was valid from July 1, 1909 to August 23, 1912.
March 4,1909.
AN ACT TO AMEND AND CONSOLIDATE THE ACTS RESPECTING COPYRIGHT.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That any person entitled thereto, upon complying with the provisions of this Act, shall have the exclusive right: