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EU Court Rules APIs, Programming Languages Not Copyrightable
itwbennett writes "The European Court of Justice ruled on Wednesday that the functionality of a computer program and the programming language it is written in cannot be protected by copyright. In its ruling on a case brought by SAS Institute against World Programming Limited (WPL), the court said that 'the purchaser of a license for a program is entitled, as a rule, to observe, study or test its functioning so as to determine the ideas and principles which underlie that program.'"
Interesting that computer "the format of data files" are not copyrightable!
"the Court holds that neither the functionality of a computer program nor the programming language and the format of data files used in a computer program in order to exploit certain of its functions constitute a form of expression. Accordingly, they do not enjoy copyright protection."
Very interesting.
...in which every book, song, movie, etc. is part of the syntax of the language, thus making them all uncopyrightable.
just patentable in Germany!
This seems strangely relevant to the Oracle vs. Google case that's going on right now over Android and its usage of Java APIs. Does anyone know how much of a coincidence this EU court ruling is, that it occurs in such close proximity to its US analogue?
Read what the decision actually says. The source code and object code which implement a system are covered by copyright, but the interfaces and algorithms implemented by that source code are not.
It's a fine distinction, but it essentially says that if you can reverse engineer the requirements of an API by observing it's behaviour, you are free to re-implement that functionality. i.e. You have to use so-called "clean-room" techniques, where the team that did the functional analysis of the APIs to write the specs have absolutely nothing else to do with the team that writes the implementation.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Everyone is flipping out over the Oracle vs. Google judgement, and this comes out of no where?! This is exactly what everyone on slashdot wanted, but no one was talking about a case whose out come has similar ramifications!?
What's going on!?
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
I understand the spirit of the law, I.E. someone that has worked out an XML or database schema, and uses that same schema would not be accountable for copyright infringement.
If a program used another programs data for its own use, then that program / program user would not be infringing on copyright either...
But if a copyrightable item is encoded in to a format that in no way resembles the copyrighted works (I.E. encoded in some bizarre, lossy, crappy method)
that no other software supports, and the decoding method is not published or known, could that data in theory be except from copyright in the sense that it is just data, and no longer resembles the copyrighted works ???
(I know this will not be the case, but its just a thought)....
I can convert any stream of bits into an API specification.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
It's kind of always been like this though. Compatibility and data interchange have always been protected. Without that protection, people would be unable to move their data into other formats and legally, a vendor could kill a customer's access to their own data by discontinuing their software. Those things just can't be allowed.
What's "new" here is that it has been challenged in court and has been affirmed.
Now what interferes with some of that are software patents...
Given that the EU forced Microsoft to document their exchange protocols a couple years ago. In essence, they've already said that duplicating a protocol (i.e. a network API) is also not a copyright violation.
This is good stuff...
Now if we could just eliminate software patents....
stairwaytoheaven {
deathstar:
schindler's list ++
jaws = 007:Snowwhiteif Shrek:
I'm lost...
European court rules .... ... ... surprise surprise: not copyrightable
Sorry, this is law
A court is not "ruling" what is "law".
In europe we have laws that define what is "the case" what is "right" or what is "wrong"
I don't know the background, but going to court and asking for a rule if APIs are copyrightable is so plain stupid it is beyond believe. The law explicitly states: APIs or SQL data definition statements are
Seems half of the world does not understand how a court works. There is a law. There is a subject. And the judge decides if the subject is afflicted by the law.
Pretty simple.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
What, you think being clever will help you evade the law? If the people who drafted the law were not smart enough to close your loophole, you do not get to exploit it -- unless you are rich or a corporation.
Palm trees and 8
... I have to move to Europe if I still want to be a software engineer?
Which is the best country in the EU? Any opinions?
The biggest thing that I can think of is that the later versions of PSD formats are not freely licensed, which is why they are not in the gimp.
If I read this correctly it is possible for European software developers to use competitors file formats, which does not seem to be the case for American developers.
Work bio at MMWD
Interesting that computer "the format of data files" are not copyrightable!
"the Court holds that neither the functionality of a computer program nor the programming language and the format of data files used in a computer program in order to exploit certain of its functions constitute a form of expression. Accordingly, they do not enjoy copyright protection."
Very interesting.
The Format of the data file being non copyrightable is an excellent Idea. Most of the time the data in the file belongs to the user, and making the file format non-protected allows for data migration, whether by the user or a competitor's product. I've always maintained that user data belongs to the user.
The wording "the functionality of a computer program" may not be copyrighted pretty much says you can't copyright what your program does, but you may be able to copyright the actual code. This too allows migration, and prevents the "monopoly of ideas", and that might be what they wanted to protect.
My only worry is that wording "functionality of a computer program" is wide open to interpretation, and could be used to ban clones. But The court address this as follows:
In that context, the Court states that if a third party were to procure the part of the source code or object code relating to the programming language or to the format of data files used in a computer program, and if that party were to create, with the aid of that code, similar elements in its own computer program, that conduct would be liable to be prohibited by the author of the program. In the present case, it is apparent from the explanations of the national court that WPL did not have access to the source code of SAS Institute’s program and did not carry out any decompilation of the object code of that program. It was only by means of observing, studying and testing the behaviour of SAS Institute’s program that WPL reproduced the functionality of that program by using the same programming language and the same format of data files.
So if you simply write a program that produces the same output of some proprietary program, that is perfectly permissible. But If you had access to the proprietary source code and used any of that code you were liable for copyright infringement.
This pretty much sounds the death knell for applications that attempt to lock you in. They might not help you migrate, but they can't use copyright laws to prevent the development of competing products.
But rounded corners? Still protected?
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
A grand total of 9 lines were copied, and as soon as they were identified they were removed from the Android sources. Furthermore, that RangeCheck function was so trivial that any Java beginner could have written it (this was stated in court testimony), so Oracle would get no substantive damages even if the jury denied the fair use defence for those 9 lines.
So yes, I have to agree with the parent that Oracle would lose in EU. They are likely to lose the copyright suit even in California.
The argument is hard to make to laymen, however, how things like this and DRM only criminalize understanding things. Which is bad.
expandfairuse.org
It's kind of always been like this though. Compatibility and data interchange have always been protected.
From your lips to the Oracle Jury's ears....
Note: I think You meant to say NOT Protected, (e.i. non-copyright-able).
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
I'm pretty sure he's saying that the "right" to compatibility, or to have data interchange has always been protected.
In the US, they can use patents. Consider the MICROS~1 extended filename patent for FAT.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
99 percent of the people in the world, who barely know how to use a computer anyways (Or will ever even have read about it) , is going to say something like; "What does this have to do with me?" Won't change anything for the downline. On a more particular note, does this mean for all those dark years of microsoft products I can now get back my money and time wasted?
It is not necessarily like this everywhere. Sure it's common sense, but the DMCA in the US forbids "reverse engineering" which can limit a lot of observing, studying, or testing of the program's execution. In this particular case, a program has been reverse engineered and emulated by another program and it did this without seeing or copying the original source code. Ie, a clean room implementation.
The biggest thing that I can think of is that the later versions of PSD formats are not freely licensed, which is why they are not in the gimp.
If I read this correctly it is possible for European software developers to use competitors file formats, which does not seem to be the case for American developers.
How about read a MSSQL DB?
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Actually, I should clarify. "Reverse engineering" means a lot of things, including disassembly. The court would forbid the disassembly here, however reverse engineering by duplicating observed functionality is ok.
There's a lot in between those two extremes though. Ie, you can reverse engineer by observing that the machine or operating systems is doing; what device registers it writes to, what library functions it it calling, what system calls it makes.
IANAL, but if I understand correctly, reverse engineering said PSD format would be legal under the DMCA's interoperability clause.
This is assuming that 'bug' hasn't been patched yet.
Don't get your hopes too high. They didn't rule it non-patentable. FTS:
notice how they don't say "replicate its functionality"? So, reverse engineering is ruled legal but usage of the knowledge gained is not free (pun intended).
I'm not sure what the DMCA would have to do with it as PSD isn't access control software protecting a third parties copyrighted work.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
No, what the DMCA doesn't allow is the dissemination of tools derived from knowledge gained by reverse engineering an effective copyright control mechanism and there are a few significant exceptions like academic works and for interoperability.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Them's fightin' words!
I wonder if this will have any effect on the Oracle/Google suit considering international copyright treaties.
Interesting that computer "the format of data files" are not copyrightable!
"the Court holds that neither the functionality of a computer program nor the programming language and the format of data files used in a computer program in order to exploit certain of its functions constitute a form of expression. Accordingly, they do not enjoy copyright protection."
Very interesting.
Does this mean video and audio codecs are also not copyrightable? They're also just complex stream of bits, afterall, and has no particular source code attached to them.
>> >> 'the purchaser of a license for a program is entitled, as a rule, to observe, study or test its functioning so as to determine the ideas and principles which underlie that program.'"
Does this really affect the DMCA?
The DMCA already says that reverse engineering DRM is acceptable only under certain conditions (mostly to do with interoperability). I guess this ruling overrides that so you can now reverse engineer DRM anytime as long as you are the purchaser of a licence to use the DRM? Which seems you'd have to be if you legally purchase the DRM-protected content.
What's "new" here is that it has been challenged in court and has been affirmed.
Isn't this just the same as saying you can't copyright the "look and feel?" I'm pretty sure that went through the court system a quarter century ago.
Does this mean video and audio codecs are also not copyrightable? They're also just complex stream of bits, afterall, and has no particular source code attached to them.
Interesting question. Aren't some of these things covered by Patents rather than copyrights?
AAC mentions patents in their license Faq.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
just patentable in Germany!
Are they? There is a 1974 convention saying computer programs are not patented. This has been transposed in national laws of UE countries. Of course there is a lot of lobbying to change that, but it has not happened yet, AFAIK. EPO issues software patents, but they do not stand in courts for now.
'the purchaser of a license for a program is entitled, as a rule, to observe, study or test its functioning so as to determine the ideas and principles which underlie that program.'"
Google is not a purchaser of a license for JME, so this ruling is irrelevant to the jury for that case, sorry.
but the DMCA in the US forbids "reverse engineering"
No, it does not. The DMCA prohibits "Circumvention of Technological Protection Measures", specifically circumvention of measures to access copyrighted materials, and circumvention of measures to copy copyrighted materials. It prohibits the act of circumvention as well as distribution of circumvention tools.
Reverse engineering is specifically *protected* in the DMCA, exempted from its prohibition, allowing you to circumvent access restrictions, if you need to achieve interoperability and the software is "lawfully obtained".
The file format not being copyrightable has nothing to do with the data/content itself being copyrightable. You could make tools that work with that unknown weird format to your heart's content, but still cannot freely copy the data that happened to be *extractable* in that container.
If all you made was some "artistic hash" of the movie file that was no longer usable as the movie itself, that might be a factual observation about it or something, or could be a derivative work.
No we need to kill the idea of intellectual property and software patents and we're getting somewhere.
+1 I don't know of round corners being protected, but that's just stupid if they are. peroid.
"If I read this correctly it is possible for European software developers to use competitors file formats, which does not seem to be the case for American developers."
Yes and they have also the right to use a working health insurance and pension plan.
OTOH, if one more phone company sues another one in Germany, nobody will be able to use a phone anymore.
But rounded corners? Still protected?
It so happened that this morning when I woke up, I inspected the four corners of my mattress.
Holy Smithereens !!!
All the four corners of my mattress are round !
Am I gonna be sued now?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Next time, when such copyright proposal failed, let's print out in CAPS the main name of the submitter, so we can all laugh at him/her.
It is very difficult to have a standard if no one can use it, and if it is to be taught in an educational institution it should be a standard. That is why a "big evil" company like Microsoft would sign something like the osp. They want their code to become a standard, and by retaining control of just the platform specific binaries and visual studio they keep control of their favorite platform while allowing small projects like mono to exist. A similar approach would work well for java, as I am sure android has created thousands of new awesome java developers which can only be good for the platform. Instead they scare away the developers by threatening the while android platform with a lawsuit.
Is it legal for a software license to prohibit code inspection and reverse engineering? Under the recent ruling, users might be allowed to inspect and reverse engineer "as a rule" in the case that the license says nothing about it, but what if the license explicitly prohibits these activities?
WPS (the SAS-compatible software produced by WPL) is a pretty darned good SAS clone for a fraction of the cost. I'm positive that they thought suing was a good business decision, even if they knew they didn't have a leg to stand on. The impact of WPL's existence is going to hurt their bottom line much more than what they had to pay their legal team. I don't have anything in the fight (other than being a user of both), I'm just happy to see something that'll either make SAS drop the price, or that we've found a good replacement.
You zap the moderators with a wand of humor! The moderators resist!
To the Google-Oracle judge's ears. The jury have been specifically instructed to assume that APIs are copyrightable.
That said, Jonathan Schwartz' testimony on day 9 was seriously damaging to Oracle's case. He established a sound basis for the argument that Java APIs had been officially released for use without a licence, and that Sun had claimed a licence was only necessary to obtain the JCK to certify Java compatibility. STo the best of my knowledge, Sun didn't go bankrupt but were instead bought by Oracle, so those statements should still be in force. I'm thinking there might be opportunity for some serious class action lawsuits for breach of contract from Java developers against Oracle using that testimony if Oracle pursue the matter of copyrighting and demanding licences for the APIs. Not to mention massive flight of developers from use of the language and collapse of the Java business as developers decide not to pray that Oracle doesn't alter the deal further.
So there's reasonable hope that we might get a double win: a non-infringement ruling from the jury and a legal ruling against API copyrightability from the judge.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
What if the license expressly prohibits disassembly, running code inspection and reverse engineering? The court says these activities aren't prohibited by copyright alone, but can they otherwise be expressly prohibited in a license?
Yes.
sure it is, by claiming that PSD is 'encrypted' using a secret encryption method... Opening the PSD in Photoshop enables you to view it and potentially convert it to non-encrypted file formats like jpeg.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Oh, that's why so many people are living on the streets in Germany and are known to storm an plunder supermarkets for food.
It would be sufficient to legally download and install a single instance of the JRE to obtain a license according to the court. The defendant in the case didn't buy a license to the API either, just installed a single instance of SAS' program which he obtained legally.
No, because the product in question is only protected by copyright. Everyone who acquired a copy of the program by legal means has all the rights to the program except those withheld by copyright.
Don't worry, the patent almost certainly has "on the internet" at the end. Unless your mattress includes A USB wireless dongle, you're probably safe.
Ooooh I miss calling Microsoft MICROS~1. The first time I saw that was when I went to Uni and had access to Usenet for the first time. This was after a few years of battling the awful Windows 95 for various friends, family and my secondary (high) school. I nearly fell of my chair. How times have changed.
I would bet that somewhere, somehow, at sometime, someone in an organization the size of Google has obtained a license to use Java.
Yes, almost like claiming that you have violated the copyrights by copying the words "to be" from the works of Shakespear.
Don't celebrate too soon.
Patents may still apply to algorithms used in the file format (it makes me vomit in the mouth a little, having just said that) and content of those files is still copyrightable as well.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Generally licences include the phrase "to the extent permitted by applicable law" in such restrictions precisely because they aren't valid in certain jurisdictions because of laws like the one affirmed by the ruling here.
I doubt that disassembly is illegal in Germany.
Someone's going to be unhappy!
But rounded corners? Still protected?
That has never been a copyright issue.
These "rounded corners" can be protected in very specific situations, notably design patents. You're probably referring to Apple vs Samsung and cases like that. When you create a design (outlook) for a device then you may patent that. This device can be anything: mobile phones, laptops, car, machinery, whatever. It means that while that patent is valid no-one is allowed to make a lookalike device.
So if you make a phone that looks exactly like an iPhone, Apple may prevent you from selling it based on their design patent. Now how same this "looks exactly like" should be, that's up to the courts, and there is definitely no clear borderline. And it's definitely more than just "rounded corners".
Another place where this "rounded corners" issue appears is in trademarks and branding. I'm sure the Coca Cola bottle design with it's narrow waist is well protected, by design patents and/or by trademarking. After all this design is very important for Coca Cola as even from a km distance many people will instantly recognise it's shape, and know the product it belongs to. Now you may be allowed to make a bottle with a narrow waist, but to get away with it you have to make it obviously different.
Does this mean video and audio codecs are also not copyrightable? They're also just complex stream of bits, afterall, and has no particular source code attached to them.
Interesting question. Aren't some of these things covered by Patents rather than copyrights?
AAC mentions patents in their license Faq.
Yes, they are.
It also highlights the issue of software patents.
Traditionally patents were related to machines and mechanical devices, which means they cover a certain implementation to solve a problem. There may be a dozen methods to solve a certain problem (e.g. peeling a potato), with identical results (a nice and clean potato), and all of them are patentable. Yet you're free to invent a 13th method to solve this same problem, and patent it again.
Yet software patents often revolve around algorithms, such as how to compress sound or video streams. Mathematical algorithms have traditionally been excluded from patents. Now when implemented in software it can be patented, such as the mp3 patent(s), which effectively patents the end result and with that the underlying algorithm, and not the implementation of how to get that result. A subtle yet important difference.
I could have told them for a much smaller fee. That kind of thing is obvious to anyone with even a remote understanding of copyright.
There's a whole 'other' market out there for mattresses that are...
From the sound of things, all GPLed libraries are now viewed like LGPLed libraries (er, or more accurately, non-modified combining is OK) in Europe... Not that that is a bad thing....
Oh, that's why so many people are living on the streets in Germany and are known to storm an plunder supermarkets for food.
Absolutely correct, it is obviously functional. I expect that the GP meant it is not sustainable in the current economic climate - I have no idea if this is true. Many European countries are finding that their welfare systems are not sustainable but Germany is in a lot better situation than many other European countries.
For purposes of interoperability. And it only refuses any other reverse engineering if used to access a copyright controlled product.
Since YOUR document in THEIR format is not copyright controlled TO YOU, YOU can reverse engineer it no problem.
'the purchaser of a license for a program is entitled, as a rule, to observe, study or test its functioning so as to determine the ideas and principles which underlie that program.'"
Google is not a purchaser of a license for JME, so this ruling is irrelevant to the jury for that case, sorry.
Sure, but I suppose the definition of 'purchaser' in this context needs to be clarified. After all if you download a 'free' piece of software, then are you 'buying' a piece of software for 0€? This is important, since Java can freely be downloaded in compiled or source form, with the latter under GPL.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
You seem to be labouring under the common misconception that the law is determined through logical principles.
It is not. Your headline point is completely invalid. It's how you wish copyright law was determined, not how it is actually determined. The problem with using logic to explain the law is one is tempted to ignore the law and derive what it must be from the logic. That doesn't work in law the way it does in maths.
Reverse engineering of foreign software has always been allowed under EU copyright law (not so much under US copyright law). Reverse engineering of formats for data one has in hand, for one's own use, isn't even a copyright issue, anywhere, so I don't get how that can be a rationale for the law.
However, copyrights and patents are different things, and what may be allowed by copyright law may be prohibited by patent law. E.g. the FAT patent trumps your right to make products that are FAT-compatible and possibly even your right to extract your own data from a FAT drive using your own tools.
Hence my point - none of this is logical. Which is kind of your point too :)
No, he probably meant that the laws and orders, that came with the reforms according to the Hartz IV report, are far from being just, respecting the dignity of the people or being balanced. But they fulfill at least the minimal task of keeping most people from living on the streets and using criminal means to gather food.
If Oracle loses and they inevitably appeal all the way to the Supremes, once Roberts, Scalia, and their Shadow even hear the word 'European', they will instantly side with Larry 'A-hole' Ellison, if for no other reason than to throw another arrogant middle finger to the rest of the 'uncivilized' judicial world.
If this is true, then why is libdvdcss still not able to be incorporated in Linux distributions originating from the US?
The actual words of the law are irrelevant. It is the willingness of the Executive to prosecute, and the interpretation by the Judicial branch that decides what the law means in actual practice.
And despite what the authoritarians said in their usual spiel of 'the innocent have nothing to fear', almost the first thing the DMCA was used for was to censor public debate by the Church of Scientology, followed by the quashing of interoperability attempts like DeCSS.
Mart
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
Why would a European court rule on patentability of software when no software in Europe can be patented?
If this is true, then why is libdvdcss still not able to be incorporated in Linux distributions originating from the US?
It is a tool for circumventing access controls to copyrighted materials, thus prohibited. The reverse engineering is allowed, and access controls can be bypassed to perform that step, but you still can't distribute tools that perform the bypass.
And despite what the authoritarians said in their usual spiel of 'the innocent have nothing to fear'...
I agree with you there. While the DMCA definitely brings a chilling effect and I'd support its repeal, it is too often misrepresented in conversation. The actual text of the bill is quite readable, and some "geeky" things are actually exempted or protected.
I still don't understand why Google didn't just purchase Sun if Java were that important to them. Now they'll most likely be embroiled in litigation for the rest of their existence until they decide to switch over to Go or C++ for Android development. The U.S. judiicial system is a black box where one cannot predict the outcome, no matter how much cards are stacked in your favor.
Fine, I am going to change my programming language to a Process Automation and Logic System. So I can copyright it. Or better yet, Ill just won't share it with Europe, and the USA will benefit while Europe gets nothing... Europe is dying anyways, no need to expand to a dying market.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
EP 0618540, Microsoft's obscene "MSDOS-compatible filenames" patent on FAT32, was upheld by a German court.
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
Keeping in mind that we're talking about EU (where DMCA doesn't exist), that exemption in DMCA effectively does not exist and there are no conceivable situations where it could be applied. It is "dead code" within the law.
In one of the earliest DMCA tests,the MPAA-vs-2600 case, DeCSS was ruled illegal, regardless of the interoperability clause.
If any defense ever tries to use the interoperability clause again, the plaintiffs can just cite every previous DCMA decision case as precedent that interoperability is irrelevant or outweighed.
Actually, it didn't. If you are referring to Apple vs. Microsoft in the 1980s, then that wasn't the reason Apple lost--although it is popular to say so.
Apple granted Microsoft a license to use certain elements of the UI, and Microsoft exploited this license by using such elements in their own GUI system.
Apple lost some of their claims because apparently the license was broad enough to cover most anything. Note that they did win some copyright claims.
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
To put it in terms that the parent poster can understand, Coca-Cola has a patent on curved bottles.
Now he can go on to rage about one more indignity on innovation imposed by the patent system.
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
Actually I keep seeing more and more of that around here. Hartz IV may work less badly than other systems, but it does have its problems. Also, once you're homeless, good luck in getting Hartz IV.
Hold my beer and watch this!
It would be legal under DMCA because bypassing whatever access controls are theoretically in PSD (AFAIK there aren't any, but let's hypothesize that there were) wouldn't be circumvention. DMCA defines circumvention in a certain way, an important part of that definition being "without the authority of the copyright holder," and the copyright holder it's talking about there, isn't Adobe; it's the copyright holder for whoever created the imagery that is in the PSD.
If PSDs contained DRM (false, but again, let's pretend they did), and you created a PSD containing your hand-drawn picture, you simply need to "authorize" the world to defeat the DRM, and then DMCA will allow anyone to defeat the PSD's DRM, anyone to create and traffic in tools that defeat the PSD's DRM, etc. These DRM-breaking acts wouldn't be exempted; they would simply not be covered in the first place. Authorization by the copyright holder removes DMCA.
Better yet, authorize everyone in the world except Adobe and their customers. Make Adobe use the interoperability clause in their defense when you're suing them over their infringement tool.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
If this is true, then why is libdvdcss still not able to be incorporated in Linux distributions originating from the US?
Reverse engineering for interoperability is protected by the DMCA. Distributing the knowledge you acquired is protected by the first amendment. Distributing the tools you created using this knowledge is prohibited by the DMCA.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Thank god the United States isn't the EU.
It wouldn't. It ruled on copyrightability.
Corrected: Why can't the US be more like the EU!
The US is like a hellish pit that spawns legislation like the DMCA and ACTA, where patent trolls can extort and stifle innovation, and citizens are free to lose their rights and privacy! Why would you thank any deity for such a wicked and corrupt society?
This move by the EU is a good thing for competition, developers and users. Do you really understand any of this?
'the purchaser of a license for a program is entitled, as a rule, to observe, study or test its functioning so as to determine the ideas and principles which underlie that program.'"
Google is not a purchaser of a license for JME, so this ruling is irrelevant to the jury for that case, sorry.
Sure, but I suppose the definition of 'purchaser' in this context needs to be clarified. After all if you download a 'free' piece of software, then are you 'buying' a piece of software for 0€? This is important, since Java can freely be downloaded in compiled or source form, with the latter under GPL.
It seems like it should be legal, if I buy you a copy of TurboTax for your birthday and give it to you (effectively transferring the license to you) then YOU own the program even though you didn't pay for it. Maybe buying someone a computer with Windows already installed would be a better example or the software in a car's integrated navigation system.
How can something as technical as this end up in a decision by jury? Really... what the heck does the jury now about software patents, software development, etc...
It is not necessarily like this everywhere. Sure it's common sense, but the DMCA in the US forbids "reverse engineering" which can limit a lot of observing, studying, or testing of the program's execution. In this particular case, a program has been reverse engineered and emulated by another program and it did this without seeing or copying the original source code. Ie, a clean room implementation.
The DMCA does forbid reverse engineering as such. It forbides the trafficing in a means to bypass a technical means of controlling access to a copyright-protected work. So, you could encrypt your code to prevent study and then threaten those who distributed tools which could decrypt it. But this probably would not stop those who developed their own tools (since they would not be trafficing in those tools) and it would not stop black-box analysis.
Actually, it didn't. If you are referring to Apple vs. Microsoft in the 1980s, then that wasn't the reason Apple lost--although it is popular to say so.
Apple granted Microsoft a license to use certain elements of the UI, and Microsoft exploited this license by using such elements in their own GUI system.
Apple lost some of their claims because apparently the license was broad enough to cover most anything. Note that they did win some copyright claims.
-dZ.
Apple also lost because the judge ruled that an extremely high level of similarity between the interfaces did not prove infringment. He ruled that one must first eliminate all elements of the supposedly infringing interface to which Apple had no possible claim. That was pretty much everything.
If you mean the Oracle v. Google case, it's being tried in the Northern District Court of California. Three of that district's four courts are considered to be in or on the outskirts of the Silicon Valley (and I would surmise that it isn't being tried in Eureka). I think it's safe to say that they should have no trouble finding qualified jurors.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
I wonder how the court managed to sidestep European Patent Convention, which Germany is signatory. Article 52 says:
Oh, yes, please tell us all about your knowledge of European Union copyright and patent law...
You do realize that the US uses a very different legal system? And that an understanding of US copyright law is of little use in Europe?
The UK is subject to the EU courts... However Europe in general does not use Common Law, so precedents are of little importance to Europeans with the exception of the UK and Ireland.
I saw someone mention 'let's make something', but in the wording described above, no movies or music, or any other digital form of "entertainment" is copywriteable.
Why, because of FORMATS. It states that an API and it's derivatives are not protected. Also going by the definition above, you could in fact 'observe' music, or a movie, and reproduce it. It would not be 100% the same no matter how you try, but it would be enough to have been involved in a coutroom and deemed piracy, until now.
Interesting turn of events.
What's your point? You can pretty much read any database page even in T-SQL with DBCC PAGE and you can find already partial documentation from tools/articles/books about the format. Also the internal transaction log records can be accessed by T-SQL even if not documented. Even for obscure things like Columnstore indexes stored as binary streams you can get an idea by looking at the patents owned by the Vertipaq compression/ordering algorithm.
Being able to read the raw data from any DBMS is not a big deal, is the query optimizer which is the big deal...
Anyone else thinking DRM?
Basix in the 80's Borland was the maker of the old computer language DBASE tried to assert copyright on their language syntax. The court ruled it couldn't.
hence FOXBase and others came out and DBASE later became the little language known as SQL when people taked on web server functionality.
Interesting that computer "the format of data files" are not copyrightable!
"the Court holds that neither the functionality of a computer program nor the programming language and the format of data files used in a computer program in order to exploit certain of its functions constitute a form of expression. Accordingly, they do not enjoy copyright protection."
Very interesting.
The Format of the data file being non copyrightable is an excellent Idea. Most of the time the data in the file belongs to the user, and making the file format non-protected allows for data migration, whether by the user or a competitor's product. I've always maintained that user data belongs to the user.
The wording "the functionality of a computer program" may not be copyrighted pretty much says you can't copyright what your program does, but you may be able to copyright the actual code. This too allows migration, and prevents the "monopoly of ideas", and that might be what they wanted to protect.
My only worry is that wording "functionality of a computer program" is wide open to interpretation, and could be used to ban clones. But The court address this as follows:
In that context, the Court states that if a third party were to procure the part of the source code or object code relating to the programming language or to the format of data files used in a computer program, and if that party were to create, with the aid of that code, similar elements in its own computer program, that conduct would be liable to be prohibited by the author of the program. In the present case, it is apparent from the explanations of the national court that WPL did not have access to the source code of SAS Institute’s program and did not carry out any decompilation of the object code of that program. It was only by means of observing, studying and testing the behaviour of SAS Institute’s program that WPL reproduced the functionality of that program by using the same programming language and the same format of data files.
So if you simply write a program that produces the same output of some proprietary program, that is perfectly permissible. But If you had access to the proprietary source code and used any of that code you were liable for copyright infringement.
This pretty much sounds the death knell for applications that attempt to lock you in. They might not help you migrate, but they can't use copyright laws to prevent the development of competing products.
But rounded corners? Still protected?
Does this mean that MS's copyright on Fat32 is open to all to duplicate. Can nyone can now create a compatible Fat32 file without any concerns?
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
Why are you answering a rethorical question? Even better, why are you giving a stupid answer to a rethorical question?