The horses won, at least for now, in their battle with the bunnies.
In late December, Ozimals and Amaretto were heading to court over Ozimals’ claim the scripts for Amaretto’s horses had segments copied from their bunnies. On December 21, the judge over the case issued a temporary restraining order against Linden Lab, saying they could not impose a DMCA on the horse company, at least for now.
“... software copyright protection does not apply to functionality. Thus even if (Ozimals) was the first to come up with a virtual animal that requires ‘food’ to ‘live,’ and copyright it has does not prevent another company from marketing virtual animals with similar traits provided, essentially, that that company did not copy (Ozimals’) programing. Because, among other things, (Amaretto) has submitted declarations supporting the conlusion that it did not copy or otherwise ‘steal’ (Ozimals’) code (and that (Ozimals) knew this to be true when it filed the DMCA takedown notification). ... “
Eric Goldman, a law professor, had a few comments on his blog. He questioned why the ruling was made against Linden Lab and not Ozimals, saying this raised First Amendment issues of the Linden’s ability to edit the Grid. In any event, the restraining order lasts until January 11, when the court holds further hearings on Amaretto’s case.
On another note, Hamlet Au noted the judge in the case, Charles R. Bryer, was an assistant special prosecutor on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force, which took part in the case that caused the sole resignation of a US President in it’s entire history, “Wonder how he feels in the twilight of his legal career adjudicating a dispute between virtual bunnies and horsies?“
Sources, New World Notes, Eric Goldman Tech & Market Law Blog
Bixyl Shuftan
9 hours ago
I'm sure he's Giddyup about how far he's fallen...
ReplyDeleteThe reason that it was against Linden Lab is because Ozimals issued a DMCA notice to LL over the Amaretto horses. The ruling was to prevent LL from following through on that while the court proceedings go through, as there is more than a good chance that Ozimals' DMCA notice will be tossed out due to prior art.
ReplyDeleteIf Mr. Goldman had researched it at all, he would have found that out.