[Steko]

This.

Perusing the comments at Groklaw where everyone is so confident this is the smoking gun that will end Oracle's case reminds me of this bit from Jonathan Chait about people who get their news from hyperpartisan sources:

"It must be like being following the state-controlled media in a totalitarian country. First you read that our brave troops are marching toward the enemy capital and will soon complete a glorious victory. Then, after a while, there's no glorious victory, but you start reading about how our brave troops are inflicting heavy losses on the enemy as they courageously defend the motherland."

http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/fred-barnes-again-see...

[Natsu]

While this will not end the case, the fact that Oracle tried to base many of its arguments on something that was not, in fact, true according to their own copyright registrations will utterly destroy the arguments that rely upon that misrepresentation.

So they're going to be in a difficult position trying to salvage their copyright claims. They might manage to do something, but they've got a pretty weak hand here. They wanted to rush this trial and all they did was to trip themselves up.

[Steko]

I think you've bought into the hype here prematurely. The odds that this issue will be in any way significant to the outcome of this case seem low.

Did you read Oracle's reply[1] or just the caricature at the original link?

"Google argues that the entire Java platform is necessarily the “work as a whole” because that is what was registered with the Copyright Office. Courts have soundly rejected that argument.. As explained in Los Angeles Times v. Free Republic, supra:

    Defendants contend that plaintiffs' “work” is the entire daily newspaper because their copyright registration covers the paper as a whole rather than any particular article. Thus, they assert, copying an individual article constitutes reproduction of only a small portion of the entire work. This proposition is not supported by the case law. See Texaco, supra, 60 F.3d at 925-26 (copying an entire article from a journal where the copyright registration covered the journal as a whole constituted a copying of the entire work); Hustler Magazine, supra, 796 F.2d at 1155 (finding that “[a] creative work does not deserve less copyright protection just because it is part of a composite work” and holding that the copying of a one-page parody from a 154-page magazine constituted a copying of the entire work); Netcom On-Line II, supra, 923 F.Supp. at 1247 (“although many of Hubbard's lectures, policy statements, and course packets are collected into larger volumes, and registered as a whole, they may still constitute separate works for the purposes of this factor”); Lerma, supra, 1996 WL 633131 at *9 (“we find that the Works at issue in this case are combined in ‘collections' and that each subpart must be considered a ‘single work’ for the purposes of fair use analysis”)."

[1] http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120426075025438#9...

[alanh]

Not sure why you pasted the quote as code. It takes extreme side-scrolling to read.

[Steko]

Apologies I didn't add any format markup, it must have been code on groklaw.

[Symmetry]

Everything is actually completely stripped of formatting when you paste it into a Hacker News comment box. What happened is that a line beginning with whitespace is treated as code. So when I add a line with " Like so" I get:

  Like so.

[paolopatron]

http://techiest.blogspot.com/

[Natsu]

I read the judge's reaction to the argument, which is more important than what either party has to say. Oracle has tried to have this issue both ways.

And that precedent probably won't do them much good, because the copying here isn't the same as copying whole articles, however much Oracle's lawyers have tried to say otherwise.

[Natsu]

Well, I just read the reports about how it went down. Oracle cut off their foot to save their leg. Then Google showed up with a chainsaw, offering to "help."

So yeah, Oracle's case might be salvageable, but I wouldn't bet on it.

[gillianseed]

Well you get the same 'slanted' coverage from Florian Muller, except he is directly paid by Oracle and Microsoft. I don't know if Groklaw has ever recieved any money but I doubt it.

Like someone else mentioned, Groklaw has had strong track record when it comes to predicting the outcome of these types of lawsuits.

[icarus_drowning]

Isn't Grocklaw's track record on this case already strong as well? I can't say that I've paid a great deal of attention to it, but as a casual observer, it seems to me that Grocklaw has all along predicted that most of Oracle's arguments aren't very strong, and as they seem to be dwindling, that strikes me as an even stronger argument in their favor.

After all, if they have not only a generally strong track record in predicting these kinds of cases but also a very good record related to this particular case, I'm inclined to put a lot of stock in what they have to say.

[cooldeal]

>I don't know if Groklaw has ever recieved any money but I doubt it.

Do you know how PJ makes money or how Groklaw gets funding to run? If questioning FM's money sources is fair game, why not do the same for PJ? Just because "she"'s batting for your team?

If Florian did the same thing as PJ and hid behind an anonymous blog, we wouldn't even know any sources of his funding.

[gillianseed]

Eeh? PJ is Pamela Jones, she hasn't been 'anonymous' since the Maureen O'Gara attempted character assassination of her back in the SCO days. She is an open source advocate who has worked as a paralegal.

I'm sure her personal finances have been put under heavy scrutiny (SCO certainly did), feel free to do so yourself.