Roberta Cairney
Roberta Cairney is the founder of Roberta Cairney Law Offices, based in San Francisco. Her practice focuses on transactions involving nearly every form of new, old, and emerging technology.
She has advised a wide array of clients on the use of new technology tools and innovative business models in distributing and developing content and services, including O’Reilly Media, Safari Books Online, The Perl Foundation, Chronicle Books, and The Exploratorium.
Google Book Settlement Round 2
Don't Hold Your Breath
The US government filed its Statement of Interest regarding the revised Google settlement yesterday with the District Court in New York. While the statement was signed by an attorney from the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department, several agencies including the Copyright Office reportedly contributed to it. As you may recall, the judge has only 2 choices: he can approve the settlement, or send it back to the parties for revision. He cannot modify it himself.
Landmark Case Upholds Open Source Licenses
The U.S. Court of Appeal for the Federal Circuit has issued a wondrously clear and unambiguous opinion (pdf) that supports the enforceability of open source and public licenses. It is great news for user and contributor communities, and their lawyers. Nothing that I've seen posted so far actually quotes any of the juicy parts of the opinion, so I've included…