Oracle and Google Spar Over Whether Programming Languages Can Be Copyrighted

pcritter writes "With the Oracle v. Google trial date set for next Monday, the Judge has asked Google and Oracle to take a position on whether a programming language is copyrightable. This presumably relates to whether Google violated copyright by using a variant of the Java language and its APIs in the Android framework. Oracle, who thinks it can be, has used J.R.R. Tolkein's Elvish language as an examples (PDF) of a language that can be copyrighted. Google disagrees (PDF)."

Comments

Any lawyers here?

[nine-times]

I'm totally baffled by this and would like an explanation of how a language could possibly be copyrighted. Is Tolkein's Elvish language copyrighted, and if so, what does that mean? I can understand specific phrases from his books being copyrighted, but if I translated this post into Elvish, does Tolkein's estate suddenly own the copyright to this post? Or what?

Sorry, but the idea of owning the copyright to a language seems silly. I might understand patenting a use of a language or patenting a method of translation, but the language itself? Doesn't copyright need to apply to a specific expression? Like... I can copyright the image of a painting, but I can't copyright paint.

Re:What About Machine Language and Assembly?

[Anne Thwacks]

In the 1960's there were a bunch of law suits over this, which is why many modern assemblers have Really Stupid (TM) mnemonics. I remember TI as deliberately using stupid mnemonics so they could copyright them. This strategy was assisted by very poorly designed documentation:

A - this instruction affects some registers

B - This instruction does not affect some registers

etc

Hint A = Add, B = Branch (which means jump) but only real gurus knew this, because the documentation did not bother to tell you.