449 Is the jury trial a bit of K's revenge << Prev Next >>
by: ColonelZen in reply to 446 by ColonelZen	IP: 181.27	rated: 0-0	posted: 2007-07-29 15:02:27
IR IV SCOX 36646 by codswallet     >>>   There's a somewhat subtle but important distinction you have to make here between the motions and some of the underlying legal issues. While the motions can be ignored, some of the issues, such as admissibility of evidence, can't.   <<<     That's what disturbs me about the thought of a K's revenge circus.     If he doesn't declare the "matters of law" settled and allows the full production to go forward, the jury will have listened to a week or two of BS(F) about how SCOX owned the copyrights. If *after* that, he charges the jury with only deciding a few very narrow issues and they come back with something in favor of the opposition I think they would be likely to appeal (and maybe win the appeal) based on having been prejudiced by prolonged haranguing about things which were essentially irrelevant.     The copyright ownership is the key to all of it, as said, I don't think there's any sane way to say that the jury should decide that.     ... unless K's "political" 'nads are so exposed that he thinks that the safest bet is to let it fly to a jury and appellate court if they "get it wrong", and essentially wash his hands of it. (of course there's a chance it will come back to bite him on the ass again ... but that would be a year or more down the road).       >>>   I recently had the odd thought that "ownership" is actually not a very simple concept with regard to copyrights, but this needs a post of its own.   <<<     "Ownership" is never a simple concept, but with an artificial construct like copyright it is considerably simpler than real property.     The rules are clearly defined in the USC - copyright owner has *exclusive* right to copy, distribute, "perform" and make derivatives, and to authorize others for these acts. In IBM SCOX is claiming yes IBM is copyright "owner" of their code but they still don't have the exclusive right to authorize others for those rights. I could "buy" El Corton's simple theory that the IBM contracts created a binding covenant not to authorize certain classes of use of their future (as of date of the contract) copyrightable works, except that the "SCO Source License" is SCOX itself claiming the right to authorize. Magical IP.       -- TWZ