Posts Tagged: "google book settlement"

Court Green-lights Copyright Class Action against Google

In order to establish copyright infringement, a plaintiff must show: (1) ownership of a valid copyright, and (2) copying of constituent elements of the work that are original. Judge Chin concluded that no participation of the individual members would be necessary in order to establish the first prong for those who retain copyright ownership. More specifically, copyright registrations are prima facie evidence of copyright ownership and they are a matter of public record. While limited participation may be necessary for those who have assigned copyrights or licensed copyrights and continue to receive royalties, Judge Chin determined that “[r]equiring some individual members to present documentary evidence of their beneficial copyright interest would not make this case administratively inconvenient or unmanageable.”

Google Legal Team is Top Legal Department for 2011

I don’t doubt that the Google Legal Team is an excellent department, and undoubtedly praiseworthy. It is also correct to say that they are dealing on nearly a daily basis with cutting edge issues that relate to the use of intellectual property in a still young medium — the Internet. It is also true to observe that they have had to deal with antitrust matters, patent litigations, copyright and trademark matters, not to mention the undoubtedly countless private matters that we haven’t yet learned about and many we won’t ever learn about. Nevertheless, I wonder whether there is a premature victory lap or recognition that is just slightly ahead of accomplishment. Certainly if Google scores a final victory in the Rosetta Stone appeal on trademarks (more below) and can resurrect the book settlement (more below) that would go a long way to justifying this award, I just wonder whether it might be a year ahead of schedule and a bit akin to President Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize after only a few months in Office.