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Comment by perlpimp | Hacker News Reader

What court this judgement was granted in? It is supreme court? if not, can't it be appealed all the way.

District court of New York.

http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrust...

So if memory serves (IANAL, but I did take a class on court procedure a long time ago), they can appeal this to the district court of appeals. I believe that SJ motions are dispositive, so they can appeal it immediately, too. Viacom almost certainly will, too. EDIT: I was confused. It says they dismissed the whole case, not merely a part of it. So yeah, Viacom will almost certainly appeal ASAP.

So this is still pretty far below the Supreme Court (which might or might not be willing to grant cert; they don't have to hear just any old case) and there's likely to be quite a bit of legal wrangling to go through. Perhaps even years worth, unless they can settle.

Google has been smart from what I've seen in terms of pointing out that the relevant part of copyright law is whether someone has permission to post something, and that's not something you can determine algorithmically. Even Viacom's lawyers screwed that up, after doing due diligence, and had to remove Viacom-posted clips from the case. Twice.

We have to see what grounds they appeal the case on but unless there is a significant Constitutional question in play SCOTUS rarely grants cert.

This doesn't get appealed to the Supreme Court (yet). This would next go to the District Court of Appeals for that circuit (and would later get appealed en banc) unless there's some point of law I don't know about that's special to this case. Which is possible, given that IANAL, but I think this is a pretty straightforward copyright case, so I'm not sure where else they could go without coming up with some new claims.

You don't get to appeal to the Supreme Court until you've exhausted all your other appeals. And there aren't many instances where SCOTUS has original jurisdiction (those are very rare, and in that case you go straight to the Supremes rather than dealing with lower courts).

But, no, I don't think they'll grant cert (though you never know). Viacom flamed out on summary judgment. IMHO, this is more like SCO where you have an angry litigant who will exhaust all appeals rather than admit defeat, which is why I feel that appeal is inevitable.

Also, they'll be lobbying lawmakers to change the law. You can bank on that. They're already working on the Obama administration from what I can see, given that piracy crackdown they promised.

Yes, I was simply stating that the grounds for appeal are usually similar, if not identical, to the grounds for further appeals. Given that, even if Viacom were to fight this up the chain, it is unlikely that they'll grant cert if there isn't a Constitutional debate or conflicting precedent. In this case, since it was SDNY, the case appeals to 2d Cir.

The supreme court only sees the cases it wants to.

Though if they did take it, that would set a lasting precedent.

Either way, its a victory.

I'd have to look into it further, but I think getting a summary judgment is pretty damning. There are cases that get a summary judgment that do go onto getting overturned by the Supreme Court, but statistically those are, of course, quite rare.

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