Oracle Not Satisfied With Potential $150,000; Goes Against Judge's Warning

bobwrit writes with news about how the monetary damages in the Google v. Oracle case might shake out. On Thursday, Judge Alsup told Oracle the most it could expect for statutory damages was a flat $150,000, a far cry from the $6.1 billion Oracle wanted in 2011, or even the $2.8 million offered by Google as a settlement. However, Oracle still thinks it can go after infringed profits, even though Judge Alsup specifically warned its lawyers they were making a mistake. He said, "It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions." Groklaw has a detailed post about today's events.

Re:U.S. court systems

[betterunixthanunix]

Blatantly abusing the copyright of a full 9 lines of code? When I was teaching introductory CS courses, we would not even accuse students of cheating over 9 identical lines of code.

Re:U.S. court systems

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey look, another bonch stockpuppet gets the first post with an anti-Google post.

Re:Oracle's damages? Because Android has Java?

[betterunixthanunix]

Clearly, if Google had not developed Android, Oracle would have been able to market its own smartphone/tablet OS using Java, right?

Oracle can go after infringers profits, but..

[DragonWriter]

Oracle can go after infringers profits, but in doing so it has to give up on statutory damages.

The Judge has pointed out that they haven't submitted any evidence supporting that Google has any profits associated with the rangeCheck method that is at issue, so this may not be a wise course of action.

Re:Oracle's damages? Because Android has Java?

[Mike Buddha]

Yeah, because they were headed in that direction anyway. What? You don't remember Java Phone 7? iJava? JavaCE? JavaOS? PalmJava? JavaGo? Hmm. Maybe I'm thinking of something else...

Re:U.S. court systems

[Surt]

The rich have pretty close to 100% control over political office and media access. I don't really see the point in differentiating.

Re:What are the 9 lines?

[DeadCatX2]

No, they won't sue you because /. ate your <

Re:U.S. court systems

[nedlohs]

Because after the exception is thrown we magically just move on to the next if?

Re:I, for one, am shocked

[jd]

The lawyers will be paid by Oracle, win or lose. They won't get paid if they're not involved in a lawsuit. Oracle wants them involved in a lawsuit that they will probably lose. Turning Oracle down is an expensive way to be ethical.

Re:U.S. court systems

[Arker]

RIAA has been awarded millions in their pursuits against individuals who gave some music away. Then we have a company that is blatantly abusing copyright laws and makes tens of billions an year, and they get punished $150,000!

Someone should look into US court system.

I was actually thinking the same thing. And you're at -1 flamebait at the moment for speaking it. Oh well I can burn some karma if need be, because this needs to be said.

Not that there is anything wrong with what google did here that I can see, that's not the point at all, but dont you see the double-standard here? When the RIAA sues a private individual for alleged non-commercial copyright infringement, they throw the book at them. When google gets caught here, and I would argue that the 9 lines are de minimis and probably functionally determined and the court is wrong on this, BUT, it appears that is not what the court has decided, so let's go with that. Google infringed copyright, commercially no less! and... the judge is (quite rightly) informing oracle that despite this determination the damage is minimal and therefore their recovery is likely to be a LOT less than their lawyer fees.

Great. But why doesnt it work that way when the RIAA sues somebodies grandmother over a Britney Spears recording? Surely that is an even more minor issue than what google is stuck with here, yet the punishment would likely be far greater. That's all I am saying.

Re:Plagiarizing Yourself?

[Cardcaptor_RLH85]

I understand the entire copyright thing but how the HELL is a software engineer supposed to remember every line of code that he's ever written? If he later goes to work at a different company and re-writes the same lines for a relatively simple function like this one what happens? Can it always end like this with a lawsuit? It just feels to me that it's a waste of time to go to court over a few lines of, potentially copied, code written by one man twice.