Justia Law Review

Hi Friends,

Today Google filed an answer to Viacom's complaint, basically saying Viacom's complaint is in conflict with the DMCA (the "careful balance" established by Congress between copyright holders and the Internet users and companies). There is the standard paragraph by paragraph admit and deny the allegations and facts stated in Viacom's complaint and...

then the Defenses:

1. DMCA Safe Harbors Plaintiffs' claims are barred in whole or in part because Defendants are protected by one or more of the DMCA Safe Harbors in 17 U.S.C. S 512.
2. License Plaintiffs' claims are barred in whole or in part by licenses, express and implied, granted or authorized to be granted by Plaintiffs.
3. Fair Use Plaintiffs' claims are barred in whole or in part by the doctrine of fair use.
4. Failure to Mitigate Plaintiffs' claims are barred in whole or in part because Plaintiffs have failed to mitigate their damages, if any.
5. Failure to State a Claim Plaintiffs' allegations fail to state a claim for copyright infringement of any work not listed on Exhibit A of the Complaint.
6. Innocent Intent Plaintiffs' damages, if any, are limited by Defendants' innocent intent.
7. Copyright Misuse Plaintiffs' claims are barred in whole or in part by the doctrine of copyright misuse.
8. Estoppel Plaintiffs' claims are barred in whole or in part by the doctrine of estoppel.
9. Waiver Plaintiffs' claims are barred in whole or in part by the doctrine of waiver.
10. Unclean Hands Plaintiffs' claims are barred in whole or in part by the doctrine of unclean hands.
11. Laches Plaintiffs' claims are barred in whole or in part by the doctrine of laches.
12. Substantial Non-Infringing Use Plaintiffs' claims are barred in whole or in part based on the doctrine of substantial non- infringing use, although Defendants submit Plaintiffs bear the burden of proving the doctrine's inapplicability.

You can see all the e-filed documents for Viacom v. YouTube / Google here. They are updated daily, and you can subscribe to an RSS feed to be alerted to new documents.

We will be adding more cases in the near future as we build this section out. The current cases we are tracking can be seen on our Cases in the News section. All for free... of course :)

Prediction -- Google wins based on the DMCA Safe Harbor defense.

Peace,

Tim

:: It's Not Safe, I'm With Stupid by Aimee Mann

If you've never heard of ConnectU, you are not alone. In a case of Ivy League intringue, ConnectU filed suit against Facebook for copyright infringement and misappropriation of trade secrets, among other charges. The story goes that ConnectU, formerly known as the Harvard Connection, had engaged Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg to complete computer programming and database definitions for the Harvard Connection website. Instead, Zuckerberg allegedly takes the code and trade secrets from the Harvard Connection to launch Facebook, a competing website.

Here's my favorite line from the Complaint: "With respect to Internet websites, the first to enter a market has a substantial advantage." So, how much of a lead in launch time did Facebook have over ConnectU? Facebook launched on February 4, 2004 and the ConnectU website launched on May 21, 2004. So, it only takes 107 days to build such a substantial advantage that your competitors are sent packing their bags and closing shop. Right.

Read the ConnectU Inc. v. Facebook Inc. et al. Complaint

Additional Resources:

• ConnectU, Inc. v. Facebook, Inc. et al. Filed on March 28, 2007 in the U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts. From Justia Federal Court Filings.
• The Facebook, Inc. v. ConnectU, LLC et al. Filed on March 9, 2007 in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California. From Justia Federal Court Filings.
• TheFaceBook v. ConnectU Register of Actions/Docket. From the Superior Court of California, County of Santa Clara.

UPDATE: Looks like the USPTO is working on fixing the ability to have permanent links and bookmarks to individual patents.

Hi Friends,

Here is some interesting news... the United State Patent and Trademark Office has broken all of the static URLs of links to patents. In fact you can not even get a new static URL to link or bookmark to as each URL is now tied to browser session. Erik Heels has a post on this here and what you can do communicate with the USPTO.

Peace,

Tim

:: Building a Mystery, Surfacing by Sarah McLachlan