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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)."
Just don't expect anyone to take interest in your language if you copyright it.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
If they were copyrighted, wouldn't the assembly and machine language folks get the last laugh? I mean, copyright lasts nearly forever now in the United States and the first guy who thought up what to call registers or how to represent them in a language or what shift left should look like or even the people who came up with RISC, CISC, etc would be laughing all the way to the bank ... right? I mean, even though it might just be a handful of instructions that interact with hardware, wouldn't this position make it just as copyrighted as the higher level languages which, in the end, depend on this stuff to interact with the hardware?
My work here is dung.
Except that the title of this article clearly says "copyright" and the 20 year limit is what patents are in the states (although extensions and whatnot make that mean jack anyway). Enjoy your "one generation" graph.
My work here is dung.
Since Java borrows a lot of syntax from from C/C++ wouldn't that make it a derivative work ;)
The technical definition of the Java language is "the set of all Java programs".
This is an infinite set.
Therefore, it cannot be fixed in a tangible medium.
Therefore, it it is ineligible for copyright protection.
No.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
Oracle doesn't care about that stuff. They will say just about anything so that Larry Ellison can buy another yacht.
Uhhh well, they should. I mean Oracle's PL/SQL is an extension of SQL which, would be copyrighted by someone from the long long ago. And if that person wanted to, they could basically say "Yeah, you know that language that your bread and butter runs on? It's infringing on my copyrights so you owe me ... gosh I don't know ... a hundred billion trillion dollars?"
...
And, like every other language, PL/SQL has to be turned into machine language at some point
My work here is dung.
Oracle, who thinks it can be, has used J.R.R. Tolkein's Elvish language as an example of a language that can be copyrighted.
Sure, but I wasn't aware that was a *programming* language.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Of course Java can't be copyrighted, but Go, Renderscript and the Android library interface can be copyrighted?
IANAL, but on the other hand, if no computer language or library API can enjoy copyright protection, then it appears to me that it doesn't have GPL or Creative Commons protection either (since being required to follow these licences follows from the copyright holder's discretion)...
Be careful what you wish for google...
Thing is, while some third-party books do claim to "Teach ... Java for Android", as far as I know Google has never claimed that Dalvik is Java. Whereas for a typical embrace and extend, be it Kerberos or Java, Microsoft did claim that their extended fork was still Java, and marketed it as such. The Microsoft lawsuit was really about the use of the Java trademark (hence why Microsoft renamed their product J++), and not a copyright infringement case. So that case doesn't really apply as precedent here and it would seem that Oracle is overreaching.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
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.
Elvish is a very poor example here. It is not a language; it is a portion of a larger work of fiction. Books can be copyrighted, so something that exists solely in a book is part of that copyright.
I suspect engraving "Elbereth" on the floor wouldn't prevent Oracle from attacking me. More's the shame.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
In the US only purely creative work can be copyrighted. Basically you can only copyright something if it has no practical application. This means that literature movies and music can be copyrighted but clothing, recipes and industrial design cannot. A fictional language (such as Klingon) could be argued to fall under the realm of copyright because it is not really practical. Google has a fairly strong case that a programming language is not copyrightable. The libraries written using that programming language in both compiled and uncompiled form would fall under copyright though.
I suppose lawyers have an ethical duty to argue every point that reasonably could help their client, but this is silly. I really like the comments in a couple of the footnotes in Google's response:
Similarly, fictional languages such as Na’vi and Dothraki cannot be copyrighted. While the film Avatar and the television series Game of Thrones are copyrightable (including the portions in the fictional Na’vi and Dothraki languages), and while, for example, a dictionary or grammar textbook for either language would be copyrightable, the languages themselves are not. Oracle asks why copyright should not protect such languages, see Oracle 4/5/12 Br. [Dkt. 859] at 9; the answer is that Section 102(b) says that they are not protected. Moreover, there is no reason to believe that allowing copyright owners to control who can express themselves in these languages would further the aims of copyright law.
Umm, duh. Do they really want to argue that, say, stating "Your mother is ugly" or some other random sentence in, say, Dothraki is a public performance of a copyrighted work? That's what it would have to be if the language itself were copyrightable.
Even clearer, though:
Oracle also argues that a computer language can be “original, text-based, and capable of fixation,” and thus that it must be copyrightable. See Oracle 4/5/12 Br. [Dkt. 859] at 9. First, Section 102(b) bars copyright protection for “original works of authorship” that fall within its enumerated classes of exclusion. See 17 U.S.C. 102(b). Thus, the fact that a system is original, text-based and fixed does not mean that Section 102(b) does not apply. Second, a language cannot be fixed. Certainly, a description of a language (e.g., a specification) can be fixed. A computer program written using the language (e.g., the Gmail application on Android phones) or an implementation of a language (e.g., a compiler or interpreter) can be fixed. But none of those things is “the language,” any more than a dictionary “is” English, Das Boot “is” German, or a C compiler “is” the C programming language. See Baker, 101 U.S. at 102 (“But' there is a clear distinction between the book, as such, and the art which it is intended to illustrate. The mere statement of the proposition is so evident, that it requires hardly any argument to support it.”); cf. René Magritte, La trahison des images.
Exactly. How can you write down a "language"? You can describe it. You can list the allowable words and explain how they can and cannot be put together, but such a description isn't a language. You can use it. You can create prose, poetry, or, computer programs with it, expressing and fixing your own ideas in the constructs provided by the language, but an expression in a language isn't the language.
A language is about as pure an abstract idea as I can imagine, and ideas are not copyrightable, only expressions.
(Disclaimer: I work for Google, but have nothing to do with any of this Java folderol, other than using the language occasionally. I'm a programmer but not a language expert and would not be qualified to offer expert testimony on this topic, even if I were asked to, which I haven't been. Other than the quotes, the above is my own opinions, nothing more. In this case it appears that they align closely with Google's officially-stated opinions, however!)
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
I have to admit, I'm impressed with the judge's question. I'd agree that this is really what's at the heart of the matter, and I'm glad that the judge is asking it. It certainly seems like he's taken the time to do his homework into programming languages and computing.
---- I'll take you in a Hunt deathmatch any day.
What about the language should be considered copyrightable? The keywords? Because Java looks a lot like many other languages. Perhaps the creators of those languages should sue Oracle for Copyright Infringement, then. Oracle's class and function layout looks a LOT like C and C++.
Is it the standard library? Would a clean room implementation of a published API be considered copyright infringement? I think there are precedents that it would not, at least going back to the IBM PC BIOS reverse-engineering.
Is it the idea of object orientation? That was around long before Sun released Java. I have a LISP textbook I got in the '80s that showed a lisp program doing object-oriented kinds of things with lisp data structures.
Attempting to copyright any of these things would run you afoul of the people who actually invented them. In theory you could patent aspects of your language (And they probably did) but doesn't last nearly as long as copyright would.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I hate oracle. I hate oracle at work. I hate reading about oracle. I hate that oracle is now in control of Java. Oracle is just like Sun, only the exact opposite.
And in one fel swoop, this case has gone from simple money grabbing to downright surreal. To decide whether a language itself can be copyright-able is going to be incredibly significant, regardless of which way the final decision goes, and I'm believe it was unwise for Oracle to even raise this issue.
If a programming language cannot be copyrighted, then their whole argument goes down the tubes and they can potentially lose a lot more than just this lawsuit. They could conceivably lose control of java.
If a programming language CAN be copyrighted, I expect to see a flurry of lawsuits as different language authors start suing one another for "stealing" parts of "their" language. The vast majority, if not all, of java syntax is directly lifted from other languages. There is absolutely nothing unique about Java's grammar.
I am going to be very interested now in the outcome of this case.
They say it's Android and you can program for it using the Java language.
They don't claim to have 100% compatibility with the Java platform.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
The very concept of a programming language that fulfills a particular need (portability, for example) is the idea. The creation of Java, and all the symbols and names of the language, is an expression of that idea. The creation of another language that operates similarly, but sufficiently different in symbols and names to be clear that it is not a derived work (for example, the Forth language), but is a new and original expression, could be an expression of that same idea (though not exactly in this case). So I'm afraid that Oracle, as much as I hate it, may be right on this one.
While I believe that it can be argued that programs written in Java are not expressions of Java, the difficulty is whether the expression of a compiler containing the same collection of symbols and names is, or is not, a derived work. I believe that it is ... because it cannot be shown that the set of symbols and names came from another source or is an original creation. We know it came from Java.
A language may also be patentable (e.g. this set of components, symbols, names, and semantics, is an innovative solution to that problem), especially under our messed up patent system. But that's not arguable in this case as far as I know.
Maybe Google should just shift Android over to Go or Dart or something.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Didn't Sun already win this case against Microsoft?
AFAIK they won a trademark case, not a copyright case: Microsoft could not fork their own bastardization of Java and still call it Java.
Orc isn't a Tolkien invention any more than the term "elf". Tolkien used these terms in a slightly different way and redefined fantasy using them, but he didn't invent either. Orc, in case you were wondering, is derived from the Latin word "kill" or "killer". Hence the marine mammal "orca" or "killer whale".
No, but a circle of protection engraved with Postgresql specific charms might.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
Copyright includes the notion of derivative works. Java is an excellent example of a derivative work, borrowing most of its core syntax from C. Oracle is effectively proposing that Dennis Ritchie's estate owns a huge swath of the language space; Objective C, ECMAScript, Java, C++, C# -- a big chunk of commercial programming is done in languages that are not even distant derivations, but nearly direct copies.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Its true that you can copyright a language. But to use the Languages of Middle-Earth as an example is not the best argument. The Tolkien Languages' copyrights are not heavily enforced. For instance the word "Orc", decidedly a Tolkien invention,
Not it's not, it's an old english word, used in beowulf for instance... Tolkien did not invent the word orc any more than he invented the word elf. OTOH, the orcs and elves of modern fantasy obviously owe a lot to how Tolkien imagined them.
IMHE it is every bit as functional as Lisp.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
Well, "Elvish" in general maybe, but specifically "Tolkien's Elvish"? No. It is quite correct to say that the books exist because of the language, not the other way around. (Heck, "The Hobbit" started from the need to have a world where "Elen sila lumenn omentielmo", would be a-ok :) For Tolkien, language always came first. Most of "Qenya" (Primitive Quenya) predate all Hobbit/LotR/Silmarillion/etc. books that he wrote.
But, this is kind of Offtopic, so I'll just stop here...
Tolkein developed a fairly in-depth grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation guide, and even name patterns for Elves. He wasn't *just* making up words, he was creating a language.
Tolkien wrote about (and used) his invented languages in his personal correspondence as well as in his scholarly (non-fiction) work.
Don't forget that he was a linguist first and foremost. His invented languages were object lessons in linguistic theory.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
And who says Tolkein's Elvish is copyrighted anyway? His description of it could be copyrighted, sure, but that's not the same as copyrighting the language itself. Don't tell me some dumbass judge granted an injunction on other people writing elvish grammar books...
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Right....they called it C#.
But the specification is not the language. The specification is a description of the language, but that's not the same as the language itself. Anybody else is free to write their own specification that's functionally equivalent but described differently.
Of course, I'd argue that it's unreasonable and unethical to charge for access to an official standard (in the same way it would be unethical to charge for access to the text of a law), but that's a different discussion.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Hopefully deployed as stored procedures to defeat attempts at cross-spell scripting attacks
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
That would mean that java developers are infringing. This is like Italy suing France for implementing their language slightly differently. In unrelated news, inventors of smalltalk and C are suing Oracle.
So not only does their own citation say that it is likely Elvish is not copyrightable, it also says that computer languages are not copyrightable – directly undermining Oracle's own specific case! Did the attorney who included this citation assume no one would check it? I expect this kind of practice from desperate college students, not high-priced corporate lawyers.
And who says Tolkein's Elvish is copyrighted anyway? His description of it could be copyrighted, sure, but that's not the same as copyrighting the language itself. Don't tell me some dumbass judge granted an injunction on other people writing elvish grammar books
Tolkien Estate says it's copyrighted. And, yes, they have been going around and suing people publishing linguistic works on Sindarin and such based on that interpretation. It's pretty well known in the community that deals with those things.
That said, I don't think it ever came to a court injunction. Generally speaking, the enthusiasts don't have the time, the money and the inclination to go to court over such things, so they just back off when threatened with a C&D.
But they've been suing everyone for ages anyway... I remember an issue of Dragon Magazine that had some harried office worker asking someone else to answer the phone that was "circular-metal-band-ing" 'cause they weren't allowed to use the word "ring" or derrivatives of it any more....
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
Quite simply it's a made up fantasy language that is not in use. Java is in use and was made accessible. You can not copyright the output of that language as it was made open and accessible.
Even if the language was closed source proprietary language, you could not copyright the output unless the purchase licence clearly stated you owned the output.
Oracle is simply going for a money grab, as open source relational databases threaten it's future. As part of it's buy a major chunk of Google campaign, it is simply using the courts to twist negotiations in it's favour. So Google Oracle merger no great benefit for Google but it creates a future for Oracle.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
And then went on to make it one of the finest languages the world has ever seen, without being held back by the Java standards folks.
I, for one, am quite glad this happened. It allowed Microsoft to do some wild things with a statically typed language which have never been seen before (linq, etc...) and they're the ones really pushing the limits and blurring the lines between static and dynamic languages.
Meanwhile, Java still doesn't have anonymous functions or closures. Java 7 came out last year and the biggest language enhancement? You can use strings in a switch.
Microsoft is worthy of criticism on several fronts, but what they've done with C# deserves respect.
Drinking habits can be dangerous. You can choke on the cloth and the nuns will wonder where their clothes are.