abstract:Copyright troll is a pejorative term for a party that enforces copyrights it owns for purposes of making money through litigation, in a manner considered unduly aggressive or opportunistic, generally without producing or licensing the works it owns for paid distribution. Critics object to the activity because they believe it does not encourage the production of creative works, but instead makes money through the inequities and unintended consequences of high statutory damages provisions in copyright laws intended to encourage creation of such works.
For now, it appears that the API CopyrightTroll concept is limited to the particular case of Java, software created corporate owners (Sun) who chose to make it free and open source, but was then purchased by a company (Oracle) that has had enormous success in selling licenses and services for the software it developed.