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It's Time for the Supreme Court to Correct Google
Townhall.com ^ | February 18, 2020 | Mike Davis

Posted on 02/18/2020 7:23:08 AM PST by Kaslin

On Tuesday, the Internet Accountability Project (IAP) will file an amicus brief in the Oracle v. Google Supreme Court copyright case. In a nutshell, the brief explains why IAP believes it is time for the Supreme Court to course correct on Google’s outrageous interpretation of the “fair use” doctrine under U.S. copyright law. But the case is bigger than one single legal doctrine and goes to the very heart of why Google is anathema to conservatives and everything we stand for. In fact, the case is the poster child for what we at IAP call “the Great 21st Century Internet Heist.”

According to the Copyright Office, “fair use” is a legal doctrine that promotes freedom of expression by permitting the unlicensed use of copyright-protected works in certain circumstances. These circumstances can include criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. So far, so good, you might argue. Aren’t we all for free expression and scholarship? Yes – except that’s not what happened in the case of Oracle and Google.

There is nothing remotely fair about Google’s interpretation of fair use. In 2010, Google took over 11,500 lines of Java software code developed by Oracle-owned Sun Company. Google took this code not because it wanted to promote “free expression” or “news reporting” or “scholarship” -- but rather because Google was worried about falling behind Apple in the race to build a mobile phone. In other words, Google’s taking of Oracle’s property was about money, pure and simple.

Now, as conservatives, IAP sees nothing wrong with making money – but just not when it comes at the expense of another’s property rights. This is why Oracle is fighting this issue all the way to the Supreme Court, with support from conservatives like us and others.

As the debate about this individual case unfolds, it is also important to set the issues at hand in a wider context for conservatives. This is not to trivialize the case; far from it. It is, however, important for conservatives to understand that Google has built not only mobile phones, but rather entire business models, using other people’s money and ingenuity.

In this wider context, the Oracle case is not just limited to 11,500 lines of Java code. Indeed, it goes way beyond even copyright or fair use. In this wider context -- which also happens to be the real world -- Google has successfully externalized substantially all its costs to others and is the ultimate free rider of the 21st century.

Think about this for a minute: Does Google own an internet network? No. The company tried and failed with Google Fiber. No problem, however: Google can just free ride someone else’s network.

Did Google pay Oracle for a Java license? No problem. Google can rob the code, call it “fair use,” and dare Oracle to sue – a dare that may just have backfired in this instance but works well in most.

Does Google need more personal data to feed the company’s insatiable appetite for digital advertising sales? No problem, consumers never actually read Google’s 300-page “privacy” policy and keep handing off their data without meaningful consent.

These inputs – networks, code, and data – make Google billions of dollars in revenues every year, and the company doesn’t have to pay a red cent for them.

In the Oracle case, Google argues the fair use doctrine allows for code theft as a form of “collaboration” or “sharing” that fosters innovation. But what about Oracle’s right to benefit from innovation? What possible incentive do other companies have to invest in innovation when they know that Google can just swipe their innovation and call it “collaboration’?

As we explain in our Supreme Court brief, “no reasonable person” could be expected to invest in creating new and innovative products if they thought Google could lawfully swipe them without consequence.

No one ever accused the Googlers of not being smart. It has just taken the rest of us, including conservatives, longer to see the Google business model for what it actually is: an internet heist of breathtaking proportions. Enough is enough. It is time for Google and the other internet giants to start respecting property rights.

As conservatives, we stand for property rights and free markets. Google and its DC proxies stand for neither. Instead, they rely on other people’s money, labor, and creativity to make billions for Silicon Valley liberals. This is not conservatism; this is theft, plain and simple.



TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Government
KEYWORDS: google; internet; judiciary; oracle; propertyrights; scotus; supremecourt; technotyranny

1 posted on 02/18/2020 7:23:08 AM PST by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin
Google is evil. Pure and simple. Obama let them get away with murder.
2 posted on 02/18/2020 7:26:53 AM PST by SmokingJoe
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To: Kaslin

Read George Gilder’s book Google - Life after the fall

all of this and more is exposed there by a very smart man who opened my eyes personally to what Google really is and where it is going

Short version, why do you think that they give you so much “free” stuff?

Because it is the data they really crave and by handing it over daily by using their “stuff” they build immense data profiles and portfolios that are fungible (money making) selling them to advertisers to profile us and push their merchandise at us constantly

Ad Revenue is the common name for this

I stopped using Google Search long ago as what you see there is what they “want” you to see, and how you respond and continue using it tells them more and more

Evil, pure evil in intent and practice


3 posted on 02/18/2020 7:44:56 AM PST by 100American (Knowledge is knowing how, Wisdom is knowing when)
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To: Kaslin

“In 2010, Google took over 11,500 lines of Java software code developed by Oracle-owned Sun Company. “

No they didn’t.


4 posted on 02/18/2020 7:47:16 AM PST by FewsOrange
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To: Kaslin

Break it up. It, Twitter, FB and YouTube (yeah, I know, Google owns it), and any other internet-related provider that censors content in ANY way (other than blatantly illegal stuff like child porn). I am sick and tired of these companies abusing the protections they are offered IF they don’t regulate content, and they spit in everyone’s face and do exactly that for the political purposes of those running those companies. That they are liberal/Leftist is of no particular concern - I would say the same if they were conservative/libertarian.

Google depends est!


5 posted on 02/18/2020 7:52:09 AM PST by Ancesthntr ("The right to buy weapons is the right to be free." A. E. van Vogt, The Weapons Shops of Isher)
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To: FewsOrange

My understanding is they just swiped the APIs and the battle is whether that was protectable or not. There might also be some debate over whether Sun acted to defend it or licensed it too permissibly. I haven’t paid close attention. I loathe Android and so many things Google but we cannot pretend Oracle necessarily is in the right here. I don’t get too much in the details due to apathy. Who can forget the SCO vs Linux mess which really was about source code claims?


6 posted on 02/18/2020 8:05:51 AM PST by newzjunkey (Vote Giant Meteor in 2020)
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To: FewsOrange

Elaborate?


7 posted on 02/18/2020 8:08:10 AM PST by Onelifetogive
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To: newzjunkey

Yeah the fair use analysis is really contingent on what the code does.


8 posted on 02/18/2020 8:12:53 AM PST by socalgop
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To: Kaslin

.


9 posted on 02/18/2020 8:15:20 AM PST by rdb3 (Gilmour, WRIGHT, Waters, Mason)
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To: Kaslin
Code that runs useful programs was put under copyright which can keep being renewed until seventy years beyond the death of the writer instead of under patent which lasts fourteen years and can only be renewed for a second fourteen year period where it belongs. All through pretty blatant corruption.

The author of this drivel doesn't want the Supreme court to restore intellectual property rights to the limited duration protection which the founders intended. Instead the author of this stupid crap wants the supreme court to twist intellectual property rights in a way that benefits whoever’s paid him to write this.

10 posted on 02/18/2020 8:18:16 AM PST by MrEdd (Caveat Emptor)
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To: MrEdd
Code that runs useful programs was put under copyright which can keep being renewed until seventy years beyond the death of the writer instead of under patent which lasts fourteen years and can only be renewed for a second fourteen year period where it belongs. All through pretty blatant corruption.

Both the patent and copyright systems are have been thoroughly corrupted by our corrupt government, with the willing cooperation of big business and other corrupt governments across the world. Copyright should last, at most 28 years. I'd be willing to go 14 for unregistered, published works, but to renew, you should have to register, and it should cost something even if it's nominal.

11 posted on 02/18/2020 9:51:05 AM PST by zeugma (I sure wish I lived in a country where the rule of law actually applied to those in power.)
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To: Kaslin
No problem, however: Google can just free ride someone else’s network.

Only if the network owner wants them too. Google doesn't get any special network treatment.

These inputs – networks, code, and data – make Google billions of dollars in revenues every year, and the company doesn’t have to pay a red cent for them.

The author may not have noticed but Google has invested hundreds of billions developing the features that attract users - the source of this data.

12 posted on 02/18/2020 10:01:12 AM PST by semimojo
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To: FewsOrange

Yep. This article is all about hating..not the facts. See groklaw.net history to know what the lawsuit was really about. Copying an API is required to be compatible. The software industry is DOOMED if this left to stand! Imagine if AMD couldn’t build processors that ran Intel x86 code? That would be a monopoly... The x86 instructions are a good model for what we are talking about. Also note ...it was the 9th circus that messed this up! Why do you assume they finally got it right?


13 posted on 02/18/2020 11:50:31 AM PST by fremont_steve
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To: Kaslin

Google also uses public libraries to skirt copyright laws by scanning books and putting them online without the authors’ permission.


14 posted on 02/18/2020 1:13:46 PM PST by Fedora
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To: Kaslin

It would be fine with me if Oracle were able to reduce Google to the size of a lemonade stand.


15 posted on 02/18/2020 5:24:04 PM PST by SharpRightTurn (Chuck Schumer--giving pond scum everywhere a bad name.)
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