Yesterday, the United States District Court for the District of Nevada ruled that Rimini Street repeatedly and illegally infringed Oracle’s copyrights, impermissibly removed Oracle’s copyright notices from Oracle software, and made at least 15 types of false statements regarding its support practices. As a result, the Court entered another permanent injunction requiring Rimini to immediately and permanently discontinue use of various support programs while further limiting others.
The Court also found Rimini’s founder and CEO, Seth Ravin, personally liable for Rimini’s copyright infringement, copyright notice removal, and false advertising, ruling that Mr. Ravin “knowingly participated in the creation and propagation of Rimini’s false advertising.”
As part of its injunction, the Court is requiring Rimini to issue a corrective press release to make its customers and prospective customers aware of the “false and misleading statements that Rimini Street has made in its advertisements and marketing campaigns.” The contents of the press release Rimini is required to issue without modification can be found here.
Among its many findings, the Court ruled that, despite the multiple prior copyright infringement rulings, an existing permanent injunction, and a contempt of court ruling, Rimini continued its illegal practices. The Court specifically found that Rimini infringed Oracle’s PeopleSoft copyrights tens of thousands of times using multiple infringing support processes. Rimini further violated the law by removing Oracle’s copyright information from files, which “concealed the nature of these files and misled its customers into believing that Rimini’s updates did not infringe Oracle’s copyrights.”
Stuart Levey, Oracle’s Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer, stated: “We are pleased that Oracle’s intellectual property rights have been vindicated yet again and that the Court has taken additional steps to prevent further infringement and false statements to our customers by Rimini.”
