Rimini Street Inc (RSI) was a software support company. Oracle, the makers of a software RSI supported. Rimini tried their best to honor Oracle’s copyrights, but Oracle felt RSI was using their shit without their consent in a way they’d have never agreed to.

Oracle sued, and won, for copyright infringement. But this isn’t the nature of the SCOTUS case. What RSI wanted, was a partial refund on the judgement. Oracle had been awarded legal fees, such as money for expert witness testimony and shit like that.

Based on 17 U.S.C. § 505, it says that litigants can recover “full costs” and then goes on to define them in “28 U.S. Code § 1920.Taxation of costs” as shown below in a post from Cornell.

A judge or clerk of any court of the United States may tax as costs the following:

(1) Fees of the clerk and marshal;

(2) Fees for printed or electronically recorded transcripts necessarily obtained for use in the case;

(3) Fees and disbursements for printing and witnesses;

(4) Fees for exemplification and the costs of making copies of any materials where the copies are necessarily obtained for use in the case;

(5) Docket fees under section 1923 of this title;

(6) Compensation of court appointed experts, compensation of interpreters, and salaries, fees, expenses, and costs of special interpretation services under section 1828 of this title.

So now Rimini was all like, show me in 28 U.S. Code § 1920 where it says a single fucking thing about attorney fees, expert witness fees, and shit like that!

Oracle was all like, “See you in court, bitches!”

As usual, SCOTUS thinks the Ninth circuit are a bunch of fucking morons. When they ruled in Twentieth Century Fox v. Entertainment Distribution that “All costs” means “All costs” instead of just the costs outlined above in 28 U.S. Code § 1920, they must’ve been stoned AF.

9:0 Judgement for Rimini Street Inc.