Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
The Courts Government Caldera Patents News

SCO Website Using Groklaw's Content 286

Posted by Zonk from the hey-pot-you're-black dept.
darkonc writes "It looks like they didn't learn from the BSD debacle (where, having sued Berkley for copyright infringement, AT&T found that they were using BSD code without acknowledging it's source). Groklaw has an article detailing how SCO has documents created by and for Groklaw on their site -- without even acknowledging the source. It seems that the defenders of the holy IP principle have hoisted the skull and bones."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

SCO Website Using Groklaw's Content More

SCO Website Using Groklaw's Content

Comments Filter:

  • Hipocrisy (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 26, 2005 @04:35PM (#12055781)
    Pot, meet kettle.

  • Weasels (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dolo666 ( 195584 ) on Saturday March 26, 2005 @04:36PM (#12055794) Journal
    Corporate Culture
    You can tell a *lot* about a company by it's corporate culture. I remember a post I made a while ago to my weblog, before I did a domain change. It's about PHP Consulting but it really applies to this SCO article because of the no-good-theivery going on at SCO. I think SCO certainly faults on each and every one of the following:

    Answer these questions about each potential customer, or even your managers or coworkers:

    1. Are you stupid?
    2. Are you evil natured?
    3. Are you disorganized?
    4. Are you unsuccessful?
    5. Do you have no budget?
    6. Are you a stinking liar? Weasel?
    7. Are you a know it all?
    8. Are you a control freak?
    9. Do you have mental problems?
    10. Are you superstitious?


    Read on... [jcomserv.net]

  • We should write to SCO (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bogaboga ( 793279 ) on Saturday March 26, 2005 @04:36PM (#12055798)
    We should write to SCO to remind them of the fact. Here they are bashing the GPL yet go ahead and use content from an "unfriendly" Linux related site. After this message, I am gonna "overwhelm" their `contact us' mail box.

    • Re:We should write to SCO (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      We should write to SCO to remind them of the fact. Here they are bashing the GPL yet go ahead and use content from an "unfriendly" Linux related site. After this message, I am gonna "overwhelm" their `contact us' mail box.

      Remind SCO of their misattribution or lack of proper attribution, yes. But I hope no one is silly enough to make a legal issue of this, at least until the larger lawsuit is over and done with.

      Nothing but bait.
    • And you're going to make the day of a sysadmin, who has already went through enough, worse. While McBride sits in his jaccuzi.

  • I have... (Score:4, Funny)

    by EmptyBuffalo ( 649938 ) * on Saturday March 26, 2005 @04:37PM (#12055803) Homepage
    ...SCO printed on my TP and forgot to put the (c) on the logo!!! Are they going to sue me too???
    • [tongue firmly in cheek]

      ... but for a different reason: SCO[tm] is a trademark, not a copyrighted name. You have confused copyright and trademark, so let me help you understand the difference.

      If I write a book titled "SCO[tm] Sucks Donkey Balls," that book is a copyrightable work. Assuming Congress keeps listening to Disney every 10-20 years (as the copyright on Steamboat Mickey is about to expire), copyright will last forever. I believe right now we're at life of the author plus 95 years. The point

    • No idea what a TP is. "SCO" would be a trademark--nothing to do with copyright. It could sue you if you tried to sell a similar product (e.g.: another OS) and called it "SCO".

  • Just a test? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Mad Merlin ( 837387 ) on Saturday March 26, 2005 @04:38PM (#12055813) Homepage
    Perhaps SCO is just testing the waters to see how far they can go before the courts (hopefully) will slap them silly.

  • Head of Canopy, Noorda's Daughter killed herself (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ThoreauHD ( 213527 ) on Saturday March 26, 2005 @04:39PM (#12055828)
    http://www.linuxbusinessweek.com/story/48789.htm?D E=1

    Happened last week- old news in internet time. But applicable her because SCO's financial backing literally took a bullet to the head. I think the least of their concerns would be Groklaw's stolen pdf files.

    • That's the 2nd "suicide" in 4 months. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by khasim ( 1285 ) <brandioch.conner@gmail.com> on Saturday March 26, 2005 @04:52PM (#12055912)
      1 in December.
      1 in March.
      Both people involved in Canopy.

      Nothing strange or unusual about that. No sir.

      • Re:That's the 2nd "suicide" in 4 months. (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        This is getting more and more bizarre.

        A long time ago when this SCO stuff started, I rhetorically asked "when would someone fall out of a helicopter" in reference to the Bre-X scam. (look it up).

        The parallels are remarkable.

        Derek

      • Re:That's the 2nd "suicide" in 4 months. (Score:5, Informative)

        by Mad_Rain ( 674268 ) on Saturday March 26, 2005 @05:43PM (#12056183) Journal
        Well, before you break out the actors from your favorite CSI/Law & Order divisions, some researchers notice that suicides [rcpsych.ac.uk] tend to cluster together, and are occassionally thought of as "contagious". That is, people who are close (family, friends, and business associates) have an increased risk of suicide when someone near them commits suicide as well.

        So unless you have some other information about those suicides that makes them look less coincidental, perhaps you should allow the dead to rest instead of furthering a tin-foil hat craze. :)
        • So if she's mentally ill there's a 10% chance it isn't highly coincidental? Not the most encouraging numbers.

          ...perhaps you should allow the dead to rest instead of furthering a tin-foil hat craze...

          I don't see how questioning the fact she actually killed herself can be considered overly critical of the dead. Quite the opposite. I hope (and assume) the police investigated things very closely in this case.

      • Didn't Darl admit he carries a pistol with him at all times? /tinfoil (and bulletproof?) hat

      • Get a 'Clue'... (Score:5, Funny)

        by Chordonblue ( 585047 ) on Saturday March 26, 2005 @10:54PM (#12057853) Journal
        "Yarro, who will remain on SCO board, according to SCO CEO Darl McBride, was replaced at Canopy by Bill Mustard. Mustard was believed to be taking his instructions from Ms. Kreidel."

        Ah HA! It was Mr. Mustard at Canopy with the Revolver!

    • That's by Maureen O'Gara. You should never post anything by her as fact.

      She often gets a lot of the facts wrong and in this case the only thing we know for certain is that there has been a death. Maureen is the only one calling it a suicide and everyone has reported that the Noorda family is not releasing any details.

      It may be a suicide or it may not be and we won't know for certain until a real journalist supplies more information.

  • Docs pulled from both groklaw and tuxrocks (Score:5, Interesting)

    by wol ( 10606 ) on Saturday March 26, 2005 @04:40PM (#12055840)
    Groklaw notes that SCO was pulling from both groklaw.net and tuxrocks.com. Even accepting that these are legal documents in SCO's own cases, it is amusing that they can't convert their own documents, but have to pull from OSS sites.

    • Well, you know they're supposed to be "UNIX technology leaders" - who can't do a ps2pdf run...

      Or maybe their finances are so bad they don't have enough employees around to do one...

      This really plumbs the depths of pathetic and petty. A company who behaves like this really should be shut down by the courts as a matter of public decency.

      Of course, if that were true, most of the corporations in America would be out of business by Tuesday.

  • So sue them? (Score:5, Funny)

    by WarwickRyan ( 780794 ) on Saturday March 26, 2005 @04:42PM (#12055855)
    Or doesn't copyright apply to scanned documents and PDFs? It's arguable, as there's as much creative expression there than there is in Britney's latest coaster....

    • Re:So sue them? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by slavemowgli ( 585321 ) *
      I think Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corporation [wikipedia.org] is an applicable precedent here; it states that when you have a two-dimensional work of art that is in the public domain, a photography of that work of art cannot be copyrighted, since even if you put a considerable amount of time and energy into getting the photograph right, you still have not created something original.

      IANAL, but I assume that scanning court documents is similar - just because you were the one who scanned them does (I'd assume) not mean
      • The scanner did write some stuff on the documents before scanning.
        • That just may not be copyrightable, either, depending on how much he wrote. If it's a longer text, yes; a few words or a single sentence, no. (Again, IANAL).
        • The writing involved is insignificant. It's all been thoroughly explored in Feist v. Rural [wikipedia.org] (the phone directory case). The article also covers Matthew Bender v. West publishing Co. (a legal publisher, denied copyright on its numbering and organising schemes for public domain legal writing). Also Assessment Technologies v. WIREdata, which ruled that a copyright holder in a compilation of public domain data cannot use that copyright to prevent others from using the underlying public domain data, but may only

    • Re:So sue them? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by HiThere ( 15173 ) *
      It MUST apply. After all, SCO has claimed copyright on them.

  • Wow.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by grasshoppa ( 657393 ) on Saturday March 26, 2005 @04:44PM (#12055863) Homepage
    ...they either a) Have some balls. Or b) are dumb as rocks.

    Given their past behavior, I've gotta go with b. For a while, I was expecting ( but certainly not hoping for ) them to pull the rabbit out of their hat and set us all back on our heels. Their claims just seemed too silly not to be justified by *something*.

    Now of course, we've all got a pretty good idea what kind of clowns these really are.

    Still, to steal from groklaw...whew...that's just stunning in my opinion. You gotta respect the lengths these guys will go to.

    • Re:Wow.. (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 26, 2005 @05:10PM (#12056013)

      Still, to steal from groklaw...

      Copyright infringement is not theft. Not when you share music illegally. Not when you distribute GPLed software against its license terms. Not when you copy documents from a website on "our side".

      • Terms.... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by ebyrob ( 165903 )
        Copyright infringement is not theft.

        Ya, and plagiarism is not copyright infringement. Heck in the US, plagiarism isn't even illegal.

        In this case, plagiarism is obvious, infringement would take a court to decide. (It isn't clear whether scans of documents can be copyrighted at this time... They represent effort, but not necessarily creativity. Further, some courts are starting to be careful about allowing loopholes that might "relock" public domain works.)
    • Their claims just seemed too silly not to be justified by *something*.

      The Big Lie.

      [T]he principle - which is quite true in itself - that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small li

  • Too busy looking over... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SubDude ( 49782 ) on Saturday March 26, 2005 @04:44PM (#12055864)
    I think SCO must be too buy looking over their mountain of discovery proceeds to add a simple attribution to their legal docs website.

    Too busy, too cheap, too lazy... who knows what their excuse.

    Perhaps it is simply that SCO does not want to give credit where credit is due.

    Subdude
    • Would you give credit to your arch-enemy? I mean, look at the situation here. Groklaw is anti-SCO. And putting links to Groklaw and TuxRocks, might give attention where they don't want it -- to the enemy. What SCO wants is to look good in their own light, not in the shadows cast by Groklaw or TuxRocks. Even though it is unethical, the people who are going to care are those that read Groklaw or TuxRocks; the pro-SCO people are going to go to a pro-SCO place, and are probably not going to read anti-SCO writin
      • the people who are going to care are those that read Groklaw or TuxRocks; the pro-SCO people are going to go to a pro-SCO place, and are probably not going to read anti-SCO writings.

        Of course when these two groups meet, the former will have an advantage in making the latter look like arses because they can point this out to ignorant SCO fans.

        But on a related note, how many SCO fans are there? FOSS is a community. SCO is a business that has investors. /.'ers are more susceptible to anti-SCO propaganda
      • Would you give credit to your arch-enemy?

        No. That's why I wouldn't use their stuff.

        To answer no and then use their stuff anyways? In this day and age? It's just plain, without a doubt, stupid. There's no question whether you'll get caught.

        Then again as a self-interested web developer hired by SCO to put up these documents, and caring nothing about the company whatsoever, I suppose it'd make a sick sort of sense to do this...
    • "I think SCO must be too buy looking over their mountain of discovery proceeds to add a simple attribution to their legal docs website." AFIK one of the court orders states that SCO may not look at any of the code IBM supplies, they need to hire an outside expert to do it.

  • Petty (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Spazmania ( 174582 ) on Saturday March 26, 2005 @04:44PM (#12055869) Homepage
    Oh come on. They didn't give Groklaw credit for scanning the court's documents. Boo hoo.

    Scanning didn't create a derivative work. Scanning added no actual content. Plus, as legal filings they're arguably public domain in the first place in which case they'd still be public domain after scanning.

    Yeah, sure I appreciate the irony of them using the work without recompense. But compared to the ghastly irony of continuing to offer Linux for download from their site this is piddling stuff.

    • Re:Petty (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Zocalo ( 252965 ) on Saturday March 26, 2005 @04:54PM (#12055923) Homepage
      Yes, they are court documents the *contents* of which are in the public domain, but that's not the point. Many of those documents have been manually transcribed, proof-read and reformatted into HTML or PDF documents by various volunteer members of the FOSS community, on their own time. Many of those documents are also provided for the good of all, free of charge and any form of licensing agreements/restrictions by their transcribers, so SCO probably hasn't actually infringed any laws, civil or otherwise.

      However, for a company currently in court claiming that the fruits of its labours have been misappropriated to turn around and do exactly the same thing... Well, it's hardly in the best taste is it, even if they are so strapped for cash and/or resources that they don't have the ability to transcribe it themselves. Plus, I wouldn't be at all surprised if IBM's legal team finds a way to let the court know about this to show just how two faced SCO can be.

      SCO shoot themselves in the foot. Again. We'll pass on the film at eleven, and proceed with the scheduled reality show re-run...

      • Many of those documents have been manually transcribed, proof-read and reformatted into HTML or PDF documents by various volunteer members of the FOSS community, on their own time.

        Now if I'm not mistaken, even things which are public domain, if you "edit" them you can copyright them-- because the document itself is public domain, but the editing, page numbers, etc are.

        No?
      • Well, it's hardly in the best taste is it, even if they are so strapped for cash and/or resources that they don't have the ability to transcribe it themselves.

        I hear Darl will have a lot of free time soon...maybe he can do it.

      • Re:Petty (Score:4, Insightful)

        by sepluv ( 641107 ) <blakesley&gmail,com> on Saturday March 26, 2005 @06:10PM (#12056346)
        Many of those documents are also provided for the good of all, free of charge and any form of licensing agreements/restrictions by their transcribers, so SCO probably hasn't actually infringed any laws, civil or otherwise.
        Actually any modifications by Groklaw, Tuxrocks and transcribers are not public domain but under a license: creative commons (attribution required, non-commercial use only) and of course there was no attribution. This is probably an extremely minor copyright violation (which the courts would laugh at) but there has been some formatting, conversions, scanning and writing by transcribers on scanned documents by Groklaw et al.
        Well, it's hardly in the best taste is it, even if they are so strapped for cash and/or resources that they don't have the ability to transcribe it themselves.
        It is worse than that. TSG wrote half of the original documents (which the court has put in the public domain) and probably have the other half in a machine-readable form, but chose to use Groklaw's scanned versions on their new lawsuit site--I assume because it is easier to leech off Groklaw than dig up the originals. This is especially ironic as TSG stated that their new lawsuit site is an attempt at countering Groklaw's `lies' and all it contains ATM is stuff copied from Groklaw.
      • However, for a company currently in court claiming that the fruits of its labours have been misappropriated to turn around and do exactly the same thing

        Actually, SCO's never claimed in court that the fruits of its labours have been misappropriated. SCO claimed that the fruits of IBM's labour belonged to them, and also claimed that they didn't misappropriate Linux. It is completely in keeping with SCO's position to use Groklaw's work; the only unusual thing is that they haven't yet sued Groklaw for not lic

    • Re:Petty (Score:5, Interesting)

      by hendersj ( 720767 ) on Saturday March 26, 2005 @05:03PM (#12055969)
      i-ro-ny: 2. a. Incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs: "Hyde noted the irony of Ireland's copying the nation she most hated" (Richard Kain).

      It is quite ironic that SCO seems to think that only their most holy IP is significant to them. They should clarify that they couldn't give a rat's arse about anyone else's efforts, or they should at least credit people for doing the work they did instead of (perhaps inadvertantly) trying to make it look like they did this themselves.

    • Re:Petty (Score:5, Interesting)

      by anagama ( 611277 ) <obamaisaneocon@nothingchanged.org> on Saturday March 26, 2005 @05:04PM (#12055971) Homepage

      • Scanning didn't create a derivative work. Scanning added no actual content. Plus, as legal filings they're arguably public domain in the first place in which case they'd still be public domain after scanning.

      Tell that to Westlaw or Lexis. Both of these companies supply the full text of court decisions, statutes, administrative decesions, etc. etc. All of these are available free at the respective courthouses, gov't offices, libraries where they are stored. Why then would a basic subscription to the state law databases of one state cost around $125 per month? Because the gathering and reformating of this widely dispersed inconveniently printed material has imense value. Westlaw and Lexis do not own the content, but they do own the manner in which it is presented. In a simialr vein, while groklaw doesn't own the content of the documents it has presented, it certainly owns the files it has created.
    • This may be more of an indication of just how
      deep the staffing/cash flow problems that the
      SCO Group now finds itself in.

      Doesn't the acquisition of most court documents
      incur (1) a service fee for copies made, or (2)
      the personnel/go-for to go to the courthouse to
      obtain said documents, or (3) both of the above?

      IANAL, and IANALA (IANA Legal Aide), but I think
      that there "would" be some costs associated with
      obtaining court documents, regardless of direct
      involvement in the case at hand.

      Also, while the original

      • costs (Score:3, Interesting)

        by www.sorehands.com ( 142825 )
        Even if there is costs in producting the documents, those documents are public record, not subject to copyright. There is such thing as a compilation copyright, but that does not apply to the individual documents within the compilation.

        There was a case in Texas, Veeck v. Southern Building Code Congress International [constructionweblinks.com] that held that there is no copyright in laws. In Bender v. West [findlaw.com] West claimed copyright on pagination, but the case was never fully dicided as they struck a deal to avoid the question. But, mo

      • Re:Petty, or Not! (Score:3, Insightful)

        by sepluv ( 641107 )
        Well, you would think that TSG would at least use their own copies of their own court filings (that they wrote) instead of scans from Groklaw especially as the trumped their new lawsuits site as a better alternative to Groklaw (and all it has ATM is stuff copied from Groklaw with no attribution). I guess this is indicative of the sort of idiots we are up against.
    • Scanning didn't create a derivative work. Scanning added no actual content. Plus, as legal filings they're arguably public domain in the first place in which case they'd still be public domain after scanning.

      I wonder if this is true. If you remaster a film in the public domain to DVD or something you do get copyright protection on the digital work.
    • It is entirely possible that SCO's use of Groklaw's PDFs is an FU to Groklaw.

      Groklaw is arguing that open-source Linux can't be copyright by SCO for a wide range of reasons. SCO knows that you can't copyright a scan of a public domain document like a legal document, so SCO puts Groklaw in the awkward position of complaining that SCO has "stolen" their property.

      To be sure, SCO is a hypocritical, scummy company based on usurping the IP of other, more generous people, but they are showing that they have a se

  • Get it while you can (Score:5, Funny)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Saturday March 26, 2005 @04:52PM (#12055913) Homepage Journal
    Groklaw better sue SCO for copyright infringement, while there's still any money left.

  • Plagiarism without Citation (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jonathanbearak ( 451601 ) on Saturday March 26, 2005 @04:53PM (#12055919)
    This is like doing a research paper in college.

    Let's say I look up some documents on Lexis-Nexus. I have to cite Lexis-Nexis; otherwise it's plagiarism. It doesn't matter where those documents originally came from. My citation must include a reference to Lexis-Nexus saying how I got this information.

    If I don't do this, I've committed plagiarism. I would receive an automatic F and face the possibility of further, much more damaging to myself, ramifications.

    I don't know about how this might play out in the minutae of copyright law, but in academics SCO would be in serious trouble.
    • Say what? Do you have to cite the library from which you checked out a book you cite, too? Do you have to cite Google if you cite a web resource found that way?
    • This is like doing a research paper in college.
      But this is SCO, who submitted stuff late becuase the dog ate their homework.
    • Plagiarism != Piracy

      Plagiarism (not citing your sources) is considered bad practice but it is not illegal. Piracy (copying copyrighted works without permission) is illegal.

      The question here is whether this counts as mere plagiarism (because the court documents are ultimately public domain) or whether it counts as piracy (if Groklaw's display of these public domain works counts as copyrightable). I don't really have a good answer to that question, but the two are definitely not the same thing.
  • step
    1 - Steal IP
    2 - ???
    3 - profit

    Sorry, mod me down to redundant if you must. I couldn't help it. I saw content I liked and decided to tweak it and post it as my own....

    BTW, does redundant burn karma?

  • There's No IP Here (Score:4, Informative)

    by Royster ( 16042 ) on Saturday March 26, 2005 @05:01PM (#12055956) Homepage
    Scanning a document does not give a copyright to the person who performs the scan. SCO has done nothing illegal by grabbing these document.

    We rightfully excoriate MSFT and SCO when they make overreaching IP claims. We should be the last ones to make overreaching claims.

    That said, the one thing which makes SCOX's claims look the worse is their own damn filings. By publishing them themselves, they aren't helping themselves in the public eye.
    • Scanning a document and posting it to your website does infringe on the original copyright.

      • Re:There's No IP Here (Score:3, Interesting)

        by sepluv ( 641107 )
        Actually, arguably, it may infringe on the copyright of the scanner too. The reason it does not infringe on the original copyright is because when IBM and TSG put the documents before the court as filings they automatically enter the public domain under US law.

        The real irony is that they wrote the documents but are using Groklaw's scanned versions on their site--I assume because it is more difficult than finding the originals.

        Especially, ironic as this site was their attempt at countering Groklaw's `lies

        • The scanner dosn't get a copyright. The scan is an unoriginal copy. Making a copy does not vest a copyright in the maker.

          It includes stuff copied from sco.tuxrocks.net which is not Groklaw.
    • Scanning a document does not give a copyright to the person who performs the scan.

      I'm not so sure about that. The details are a bit vague in my mind (I don't remember the details enough to google), but there was a similar case in which some dude painstakingly traveled to a bunch of museums around the world, photographed a fameous artist's works (monet, van gogh, something like that), cropped, stitched, readjusted etc., and presented them on the web. Then, someone copied them onto another website and was

    • Re:There's No IP Here (Score:5, Informative)

      by Ryan Stortz ( 598060 ) <`ryan0rz' `at' `gmail.com'> on Saturday March 26, 2005 @06:04PM (#12056319)
      A few days ago, I was going through the Project Gutenberg [gutenberg.org] FAQ. I forget why, but it covers a few copyright issues with public domain works:

      C.16. How come my paper book of Shakespeare says it's "Copyright 1988"?
      Shakespeare was published long enough ago to be indisputably in the public domain everywhere, so how can a Shakespeare text be copyrighted?


      There are two possibilities:

      1. The author or publisher has changed or edited the text enough to qualify as a "new edition", which gets a "new copyright".

      2. The publisher has added extra material, such as an introduction, critical essays, footnotes, or an index. This extra material is new, and the publisher owns the copyright on it.

      The problem with these practices is that a publisher, having added this copyrighted material, or edited the text even in a minor way, may simply put a copyright notice on the whole book, even though the main part of it--the text itself--is in the public domain! And as time goes on, the number of original surviving books that can be proved to be in the public domain grows smaller and smaller; and meanwhile publishers are cranking out more and more editions that have copyright notices. Eventually it becomes harder and harder to prove that a particular book is in the public domain, since there are few pre-1923 copies available as evidence.


      C.17. What makes a "new copyright"?
      A special case, that isn't quite a new edition, is when someone "marks up" a public domain text in, for example, HTML. Where this happens, the text is in the public domain, but the markup is copyrighted. We've already seen that when an editor adds footnotes to a public domain text, he owns copyright on the footnotes but not on the text: similarly, when he adds markup to the text, he owns copyright on the markup.
      So, basically the formatting, anything additional added, and the general presentation are all copyrighted. I don't visit Groklaw, but I'm sure they made edits, footnotes, and other changes. If SCO included any of those, they'd be violating copyright.
      • Most of the filings are PDFs which can be pulled off of PACER. Some filings are paper only. Frank Sorenson went down to the courtroom and paid for copies which he scanned and put up on the web as images stuffed in PDFs -- not OCRed.

        I maintain that no protectable expression was added in scanning a public record into an image file.

        No added footnotes. No cross references. Just images of the documents as they were filed in the court.
    • Being a public domain work, the content of the documents is not copyrighted. However, a decent IP lawyer should be able to make a copyright case since they are the ones who fixed the information into its current form. That's why although the Iliad isn't copyrighted, you will see a copyright notice on the book when you buy a copy of it.

      Putting into context of the case that established you can't copyright facts, a phonebook. It was legal to copy all of the information in the phonebook and republished in a se
      • Just because there's acopyright notice, dosn't mean that anything included is actually copyrightable. The original greek of the Iliad is public domain. Translation published in the US prior to 1923 are public domain. A contemporary translation is copyrightable.

        We're taking scans of court documents, not transalations of a literary work.
        • I probably shouldn't have used the Iliad, since there is a translation issue. But my Edgar Allen Poe collection is copyrighted. Not the Poe text within, but the whole product. It would probably be legal to copy every word out of it and reprint it in another form, but that fixed form itself (my book) is copyrighted.

          Look up the phone book case for example. FEIST PUBLICATIONS, INC. v. RURAL TEL. SERVICE CO., 499 U.S. 340 (1991)
          • There's a *claim* of a copyright in your Poe edition.

            I've read Feist. There needs to be creative content for there to be copyright. AN alphabetical listing of names, addresses and phone numbers lacked sufficient originality to be copyrightable. In this case, "selection and arrangement" of the names on the page and the act of typesetting provided no creative content.

            Similarly with your Poe edition, the typesetting and pagination gets them nothing. Even the selection of stories and ordering of them provides

  • They kyped the Jargon File, too (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Baloo Ursidae ( 29355 ) <dead@address.com> on Saturday March 26, 2005 @05:07PM (#12055994) Journal
    SCO thought ESR would just let it fly to use the FUD entry of the Jargon file to further their claims [ursine.ca] back in 2003. SCO [sco.com]: See also Bzzt! Wrong. [ursine.ca]

  • Error in the article (Score:4, Interesting)

    by bruns ( 75399 ) <bruns@2REDHATmbit.com minus distro> on Saturday March 26, 2005 @05:33PM (#12056124) Homepage
    Its www.groklaw.net, not wwwgroklaw.net. Perhaps someone should review the article next time for errors before posting?

  • What surprise? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by davmoo ( 63521 ) on Saturday March 26, 2005 @06:34PM (#12056462)
    This is no surprise. SCO has bashed Linux and the GPL for several years now, and all that time have been still attempting to sell their products based on Linux and other GPL software. The left hand slams GPL, while the right hand sings the praises.

    Its just further proof that no one at SCO has any idea what the fuck they are doing. I've said it before, I'll say it again...those who can, innovate, those who can't, litigate. And now we can add that those who can't litigate successfully steal from those who can.
  • What SCO is doing is totally obnoxious - after all, imagine what would happen if /. started to use and quote headlines from oth...oh wait!

  • Yawn (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Saturday March 26, 2005 @08:10PM (#12057037) Journal
    Is there any reason to even talk about this any more? I mean, is there anybody on the face of the planet, even McBride himself, who seriously thinks that SCO has even the vaguest chance of victory? The only thing that counts is the courtroom, and I doubt there's anyone left on Wallstreet who gives a flying f**k about SCO's FUD anymore.

  • Not quite complete at SCO (Score:5, Funny)

    by Quila ( 201335 ) on Saturday March 26, 2005 @08:12PM (#12057049)
    I noticed their documents relating to Daimler Chrysler aren't complete. They have quite a few, but seem to have left out the later documents showing WHEN THEY LOST.

    This company is just pathetic.

  • It all looks bad... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by localman ( 111171 ) on Saturday March 26, 2005 @09:06PM (#12057329) Homepage
    But unless Darl and his buddies end up dirt poor, this has all been fun and games. That's the beauty of corporations: they can misbehave all they want, and when they are eventually killed, no real person has to suffer any meaningful consequences.

    To beat the dead horse: this is why corporations shouldn't be treated as equal to humans by the law, because they don't play by the same rules and they don't have the same motivations and limitations. It's unbalanced.

    Cheers.

  • Oh, puh-leeze! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by werdna ( 39029 ) on Saturday March 26, 2005 @09:57PM (#12057548) Journal
    It seems that the defenders of the holy IP principle have hoisted the skull and bones.

    You are seriously claiming IP rights in the PDF scan of a public document, or comparing the conduct with the allegation of copyright infringement? Give me a break!

    Either we are trying to provide a public service by making documents available to the public to lend more light than heat, or we are as bad as they are and just blowing smoke. Public service means the public as a whole -- including the bad guys.

    Seriously, by making petty bullshit allegations of wrongdoing for doing the right thing -- disseminating public information -- we lie right down next to the thing we are supposedly demonizing.

    Don't fight battles on the wrong playing fields. You should proudly point out they are beginning to appreciate our virtues, not suggest that they are doing the same thing they accuse us of doing. They aren't, and we're not.

  • Darl, you're at it again. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by rice_burners_suck ( 243660 ) on Saturday March 26, 2005 @10:40PM (#12057786)
    It seems that the defenders of the holy IP principle have hoisted the skull and bones.

    If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: I firmly believe that when SCO was Caldera and Caldera was developing Linux, contributing to Linux, and open sourcing some of their proprietary software, a lot of stuff that was used in their proprietary code was placed in Linux, and a lot of stuff that was in Linux was then placed in their proprietary software.

    In other words, the programmers there had access to the source for both systems, and instead of reinventing things that already existed on one system for implementation in the other, they copied and pasted, perhaps making some modifications in the process. I firmly believe that this company did not keep a record of what was copied and in which direction.

    Then, Caldera became SCO. Then, some idiot named Darl looked at Linux code, saw something that looked strikingly similar to SCO code, and jumped to the conclusion that it must mean that proprietary SCO code was illegally copied into Linux. Since IBM had access to SCO code, this was proof, in Darl's crooked mind, that IBM illegally copied SCO code into Linux.

    He didn't consider the following possibilities:

    1. Linux code originally developed by--and belonging to--the community was illegally copied into SCO code. Darl assumed that any code present in both systems was originally developed at SCO and illegally copied into Linux.
    2. SCO code originally developed by SCO or some company it bought in the past was contributed by SCO into Linux. Darl assumed that any code present in both systems was originally developed at SCO and illegally copied into Linux.
    3. Code developed by parties who created *BSD--or by other parties not affiliated with SCO or with the Linux community--was illegally copied by SCO into SCO code, and this copying was later forgiven by the rightful copyright owners when it was discovered that both parties mutually copied from each other. Similar or identical code was later copied from open source projects such as the *BSDs into Linux. This may or may not be proper, depending on the rightful owner's wishes, but SCO never had rightful ownership of this code, and therefore was never wronged by its presence in Linux. Darl assumed that any code present in both systems was originally developed at SCO and illegally copied into Linux.
    I am not surprised at all that SCO is doing this thing with Groklaw's content. I'd give it a few weeks, and you'll see SCO suing Groklaw for copying SCO's copyright-protected text off SCO's webpage...

Slashdot Top Deals

Math is like love -- a simple idea but it can get complicated. -- R. Drabek

Close