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Supreme Court rejects challenge to Google's online library
Court Watch |
2016/04/17 21:41
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The Supreme Court turned away a challenge Monday to Google's online book library from authors who complained that the project makes it harder for them to market their work.
The justices let stand lower court rulings in favor of Mountain View, California-based Google and rejected the authors' claim that the company's digitizing of millions of books amounts to "copyright infringement on an epic scale."
Lower courts have said that Google can provide small portions of the books to the public without violating copyright laws.
The Authors Guild and individual authors first filed their challenge to Google's digital book project in 2005. Google Inc. has made digital copies of more than 20 million books from major research libraries and established a publicly available search function.
In October, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York agreed with a judge who concluded that Google was not violating copyright laws when it showed customers small portions of the books. The authors said the project would spoil the market for their work.
The appeals court said that Google's "snippet view, at best and after a large commitment of manpower, produces discontinuous, tiny fragments, amounting in the aggregate to no more than 16% of a book. This does not threaten the rights holders with any significant harm to the value of their copyrights or diminish their harvest of copyright revenue."
The three-judge appeals panel did acknowledge, though, that some book sales would likely be lost if someone were merely searching for a portion of text to ascertain a fact.
Writers involved in the lawsuit include Jim Bouton, author of the best-seller "Ball Four," Betty Miles, author of "The Trouble with Thirteen," and Joseph Goulden, author of "The Superlawyers: The Small and Powerful World of Great Washington Law Firms."
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Despite court ruling, China gay rights movement makes gains
Court Watch |
2016/04/16 06:42
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For years, Chen Tiantian could only read about the gay rights movement in faraway places. She knew that there were activists in Beijing and a vibrant community in Shanghai, and that in San Francisco, a distant mecca, gay pride parades took up entire streets.
But on Wednesday, the 20-year-old English major sat on the steps of a courthouse and spoke fervently about how the struggle for equality had arrived in her central Chinese hometown — and how she planned to take part.
"It's hard to believe, but we're right in the middle of this," said Chen, who is lesbian and came with several friends to support a local couple who had challenged the city's civil affairs bureau after they were denied a marriage certificate. "It's like I'm finally entering the struggle myself."
Though it was dismissed by the court in Changsha, China's first legal challenge to a law limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples has galvanized many of the hundreds of young Chinese gay rights supporters who gathered at the courthouse, some of them waving small rainbow flags. The hearing's sizable public turnout and coverage by usually conservative Chinese media appeared to reflect early signs of shifting social attitudes in China on the topic of sexual orientation.
The lawsuit that was dismissed was brought by 26-year-old Sun Wenlin against the civil affairs bureau for refusing to issue him and his partner, Hu Mingliang, a marriage registration certificate. The judge's ruling against the couple came down after a three-hour hearing — but that didn't dampen the mood of many of the hundreds of young Chinese who gathered outside the courthouse hoping for a chance to "witness history," in the words of one supporter.
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Court sends part of Wisconsin voter ID case back to judge
Court Watch |
2016/04/11 06:44
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A judge must consider whether Wisconsin's voter photo identification law applies to people who face daunting obstacles in obtaining identification, a three-judge federal appellate panel ruled Tuesday.
The American Civil Liberties Union and the National Law Center for Homelessness and Poverty filed a federal lawsuit in 2011 challenging the law. U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman struck the law down in April 2014, saying it unfairly burdens poor and minority voters who may lack such identification.
But a three-judge panel from the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ultimately reversed him and upheld the law that October, ruling Wisconsin's law is substantially similar to one in Indiana that the U.S. Supreme Court declared constitutional. The law was in effect for last week's presidential primary.
The ACLU and the national homeless center have continued to argue, however, that voters who face stiff hurdles in getting a photo ID should be allowed to vote by affidavit. They say those voters include people who can't obtain IDs because of name mismatches or other errors in birth certificates or other necessary documents; those who need a credential from another agency such as the Social Security Administration that they can't get without a state photo ID; or those who need a document that no longer exists. |
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Court upholds total population count in electoral districts
Court Watch |
2016/04/04 17:33
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A unanimous Supreme Court ruled Monday that states can count everyone, not just eligible voters, in deciding how to draw electoral districts.
The justices turned back a challenge from Texas voters that could have dramatically altered political district boundaries and disproportionately affected the nation's growing Latino population.
The court ruled that Texas' challenged state Senate districting map, using total population, complied with the principle of "one person, one vote," the requirement laid out by the Supreme Court in 1964 that political districts be roughly equal in population.
The issue, though, was what population to consider: everyone or just eligible voters.
The challengers said the districts had vastly different numbers when looking at eligible voters, in violation of the Constitution.
"Jurisdictions, we hold, may design state and local legislative districts with equal total populations; they are not obliged to equalize voter populations," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said, summarizing her opinion for the court.
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Supreme Court rejects Blagojevich appeal in corruption case
Court Watch |
2016/03/26 16:45
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The Supreme Court on Monday rejected former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's appeal of his corruption convictions that included his attempt to sell the vacant Senate seat once occupied by President Barack Obama.
The justices let stand an appeals court ruling that found Blagojevich crossed the line when he sought money in exchange for naming someone to fill the seat. Blagojevich, 59, is serving a 14-year sentence at a federal prison in Colorado.
A federal appeals court last year threw out five of his 18 convictions and Blagojevich was hoping the Supreme Court would consider tossing the rest. His lawyers argued in an 83-page November filing that the line between the legal and illegal trading of political favors has become blurred, potentially leaving politicians everywhere subject to prosecution.
The appeal to the high court was a last slim hope for Blagojevich, who has proclaimed his innocence for years. Since his 2008 arrest and through his two trials, Blagojevich has argued he was participating in legal, run-of-the-mill politicking.
Blagojevich meanwhile is awaiting a resentencing ordered in July by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago when it ruled to toss the five convictions.
The Supreme Court hears only around 80 cases a year out of more than 10,000 requests and typically accepts cases that raise weighty and divisive legal issues.
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RNC launches campaign to oppose Obama's Supreme Court pick
Court Watch |
2016/03/14 22:58
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The Republican Party is launching a campaign to try to derail President Barack Obama's nominee to the Supreme Court, teaming up with a conservative opposition research group to target vulnerable Democrats and impugn whomever Obama picks.
A task force housed within the Republican National Committee will orchestrate attack ads, petitions and media outreach to bolster a strategy that Senate Republicans adopted as soon as Justice Antonin Scalia died last month: refusing to consider an Obama nominee out of hopes that the next president will be a Republican.
The RNC will contract with America Rising Squared, an outside group targeting Democrats that's run by a longtime aide to GOP Sen. John McCain. GOP chairman Reince Priebus said it would be the most comprehensive judicial response effort in the party's history.
Priebus said the RNC would "make sure Democrats have to answer to the American people for why they don't want voters to have a say in this process."
Obama is expected to announce his pick as early as this week, touching off a heated election-year battle as Obama and Democrats try to pressure Republicans into relenting and allowing hearings and a vote. Advocacy groups on both sides are primed to unleash an onslaught of activity aimed at rallying public support, and a number of former top Obama advisers have been drafted to run the Democratic effort.
RNC officials said that in addition to scouring the nominee's history for anything that can be used against him or her, the party will also work to portray Democrats as hypocritical, dredging up comments that Vice President Joe Biden and other Democrats made in previous years suggesting presidents shouldn't ram through nominees to the high court in the midst of an election.
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Court declines stay in redistricting; Congress elections off
Court Watch |
2016/02/17 17:17
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The U.S. Supreme Court refused Friday night to stop a lower-court order demanding North Carolina legislators draw a new congressional map, meaning House primary elections won't occur next month as scheduled and are shifted to June.
The denial of the request by state of North Carolina attorneys for the justices to intervene came just hours after Republican lawmakers meeting in Raleigh voted for redrawn boundaries as a safeguard to comply with a federal court ruling that called two majority black districts racial gerrymanders. A new congressional elections calendar also was approved.
The General Assembly reconvened and passed a new map because a three-judge panel had ordered a replacement by Friday.
State attorneys argued that absentee ballots already were being requested for the March 15 primary election, and blocking districts used since 2011 would create electoral chaos and a costly separate House primary later in the year. But voters who sued over the boundaries said they shouldn't have to vote in illegal districts for another election cycle, like in 2012 and 2014.
The refusal — a one-sentence decision that said Chief Justice John Roberts had referred the request to the entire court — means the congressional primary elections will now occur June 7 under new boundaries that put two incumbents in the same district and seriously jeopardize the re-election of Democratic Rep. Alma Adams, who is now living in a strong Republican district.
Mollie Young, a spokeswoman for GOP House Speaker Tim Moore, said the legislative leaders' attorneys would review the decision before making a comment.
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