Copyright

Since 2002, at first in secret and later with great fanfare, Google has been working to create a digital collection of all the world's books, a library that it hopes will last forever and make knowledge far more universally accessible. But from the beginning, there has been an obstacle even more daunting than the project's many technical challenges: copyright law. Ideally, a digital library would provide access not only to books free from copyright constraints (those published before 1923)

SAN FRANCISCO - A federal jury handed Oracle Corp. a major setback in its high-stakes copyright infringement case against Google Inc. by failing to agree on a key issue in the case. The 12-member panel concluded that Google lifted technology from Oracle's Java programming language to build its popular Android mobile software that powers more than 300 million devices, but could not reach a unanimous decision on whether Google had the legal right to do so under "fair use. " The impasse after five days of deliberation means that Oracle is unlikely to wring hundreds of millions of dollars from the search giant on copyright infringement claims.

He is the world's most famous personality, better known in this country than anyone living or dead, real or fictional. Market researchers say his 97% recognition rate in the U.S. edges out even Santa Claus. He is the one -- and, for now, only -- Mickey Mouse. As Mickey turns 80 this fall, the most beloved rodent in show business is widely regarded as a national treasure. But he is owned lock, stock and trademark ears by the corporate heirs of his genius creator, Walt Disney.

Jurors deciding whetherGoogle Inc.stole Oracle Inc.'s technology are deadlocked on one of three questions about whether the search engine provider infringed copyrights to build Android software. U.S. Judge William Alsup in San Francisco, presiding over an intellectual property trial in its third week, sent the jurors home Friday and ordered them to return Monday for more deliberations. Alsup had said he would accept a partial verdict Friday and changed his plan after talking privately with Oracle's and Google's lawyers.

A 1971 law giving the Christian Science Church an extended copyright to its central theological text was declared unconstitutional this week by a federal appeals court. The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals here said the law giving the church a copyright to all editions of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" is unconstitutional because it "offends the fundamental principles of separation of church and state."

A three-letter word for the latest schoolyard rage has landed at the center of a high-stakes legal battle that is being played out in an Orange County courtroom. The word is pog . And the issue that will likely be settled during a jury trial this fall is who can legally market the name for the colorful, coin-sized discs that look like milk-bottle caps. Universal Pogs Assn. Inc. is suing the World Pog Federation, disputing the federation's claims of exclusive rights to the name.

Sophia Stewart didn't attend her June 13 hearing at the U.S. federal court building in downtown Los Angeles. She saw the proceeding as a minor hurdle on the way to an anticipated July 12 trial in her copyright infringement suit against directors Andy and Larry Wachowski, James Cameron and other defendants--a trial she imagined would be "one of the largest suits for damages in the history of the film industry."

If the $40-billion global music business thought it had problems with the emergence of a revolutionary Internet tool called Napster, consider the now-terrified needlepoint industry. For years, grandmotherly hobbyists, hungry for doily-and-swan patterns, have forked over $6 and $7 for them. Without a peep of complaint, they have provided a steady stream of revenue to pattern publishers such as Cross My Heart and Pegasus Originals.

Nullsoft Inc., maker of the MP3 music player Winamp, has agreed to stop distributing copies of a music-decoding program. The Sedona, Ariz., company is the defendant in a $20-million copyright infringement suit filed by PlayMedia Systems Inc. of Los Angeles. PlayMedia claims that Nullsoft founder Justin Frankel did not pay to use software code PlayMedia developed.

Bruce Stokes of the Council on Foreign Relations made some surprising errors in his commentary about how China ignores U.S. copyright (Opinion, May 26). For example, he states that some movies are available on videocassette in China before they appear on the screen. How? To accomplish this would take a huge conspiracy involving post-production supervisors, processing labs and literally hundreds of technicians. Not likely! What I believe he meant to say was that movies on video often appear in China before the U.S. Regarding the short shrift he gave writers, composers, producers and directors, I can assure you nobody stands for copyrighted property being pirated.

Since 2002, at first in secret and later with great fanfare, Google has been working to create a digital collection of all the world's books, a library that it hopes will last forever and make knowledge far more universally accessible. But from the beginning, there has been an obstacle even more daunting than the project's many technical challenges: copyright law. Ideally, a digital library would provide access not only to books free from copyright constraints (those published before 1923)

SAN FRANCISCO — It's being called the World Series of intellectual property trials. Oracle Corp. has accused Google Inc.'s top executives of swiping a crucial bit of technology to build its Android software that now powers more than 300 million mobile devices. The showdown between the two Silicon Valley heavyweights got underway in a San Francisco federal courtroom this week with a blast of high-tech star power as the dueling multibillionaire chief executives, Oracle's Larry Ellison and Google's Larry Page, took the stand.

A federal appeals court judge has revived a $1-billion copyright infringement lawsuit by Viacom Inc.against Google Inc.'sYouTube, reopening a high-profile clash between old and new media. The dispute - which began when established media conglomerates were struggling to cope with the disruption of online video - reflected a frantic effort by Viacom to halt unauthorized snippets of its TV shows from showing up online. Ironically, the ruling, which revives the 2007 legal conflict, comes in the same week that YouTube announced an online movie distribution agreement with Viacom-owned Paramount Pictures.

A federal appeals court has given Viacom a second chance to prove its copyright infringement claims against Google's YouTube, reviving a high-stakes battle between entertainment companies and Internet entrepreneurs over "user-generated content" sites. The decision Thursday by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals was a partial win for both sides, but it left a few important issues unsettled as it tried to strike the right balance between competing interests. Viacom — a giant entertainment conglomerate whose assets include Paramount Pictures and Comedy Central — alleged that YouTube made more than 60,000 snippets of its content available for free, damaging the market for its movies and TV shows.

The composer of the Survivor hit "Eye of the Tiger" has sued Newt Gingrich to stop the Republican presidential candidate from using the "Rocky III" anthem at campaign events. The lawsuit was filed Monday in federal court in Chicago by Rude Music  Inc., the Palatine-based music publishing company owned by Frank Sullivan, who composed the song and copyrighted it in 1982. The lawsuit states that as early as 2009, Gingrich has entered rallies and public events to the pulsing guitar riffs of the song, which was the background track to Rocky Balboa's training montages in the film and became a No. 1 hit. The suit lists appearances by Gingrich at the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2009, 2010 and 2011 and numerous stops in Iowa among events at which the candidate has used the song without Sullivan's permission, as well as Internet videos featuring Gingrich that have been posted by American Conservative Union.

The Justice Department has conducted a major action to shut down MegaUpload, a popular file-sharing site widely used for free downloads of movies and television shows. After receiving indictments from a grand jury in Virginia for racketeering conspiracy, conspiracy to commit copyright infringement and other charges Jan. 5, federal authorities Thursday arrested four people and executed more than 20 search warrants in the U.S. and eight foreign countries. Authorities also seized 18 domain names and an estimated $50 million in assets, including servers run in Virginia and Washington, D.C. MegaUpload is a "digital locker" that allows users to store files that can be streamed or downloaded by others.

EBay Inc. has begun monitoring items for sale on its site for possible copyright infringement in response to pressure from software makers and intellectual property interests. The new program has removed about 12 listings per day for software, movies, music and other copyrighted content since it began in December. The software industry's anti-piracy trade group and manufacturers of copyright products, such as Microsoft Corp., pushed for the change.

Wonderware Corp. in Irvine announced Wednesday that it has reached an out-of-court settlement ending more than two years of legal disputes over copyright issues with a pair of rival software developers. Terms of the settlements between Wonderware, Cyberlogic Technologies Inc. and Intellution Inc. were not disclosed. None of the companies admitted any wrongdoing or liability.

Fix the little things Re "Brown puts focus on big projects," Jan. 19 California has cities with transit systems that are underfunded, unreliable and little used; we have the Amtrak rail system that, in the words of author James Kunstler, "the Bulgarians would be ashamed of"; and we have cities that are essentially unwalkable and unbikeable because they were designed exclusively for the private automobile. The streets and roads we do have are falling apart and are jammed day and night because there are no viable alternatives to driving.

Watching mastodons of commerce do battle with each other can be awfully entertaining, as long as one's vantage point is well out of trampling range. The contest unfolding in Washington between a coalition of entertainment conglomerates and drug companies on the one hand and Google and its fellow Internet giants on the other, however, is of more than academic interest. Too much is at stake. The fight is over a pair of bills designed, theoretically, to shut down "rogue websites" devoted to pitching pirated or counterfeit movies, music, medicines and other goods at American consumers from overseas.