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.'"

Comments

It's now a free for all for all file fomats! Yeah!

[itsybitsy]

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.

Let's design a programming language...

[Anonymous Coward]

...in which every book, song, movie, etc. is part of the syntax of the language, thus making them all uncopyrightable.

Strangely Relevant to Oracle vs. Google?

[Jahava]

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?

Re:Strangely Relevant to Oracle vs. Google?

[Darinbob]

And the US Trade Representative would likely put the EU countries on the watchlist of states that need to improve IP legislation...

Re:Strangely Relevant to Oracle vs. Google?

[rossz]

For one, "java" is a slang term for coffee. This was true before the language. That's why the java logo is a steaming cup of coffee. Thus, because it's a common term, it may not be eligible to be trademarked.

Quite the opposite. The less the term/phrase describes the product, the stronger the trademark. Thus, Apple is an excellent name for a computer company, but would probably be rejected if a fruit company tried to use it as a trademark. Microsoft should have been considered a weak trademark, but they got lucky and have the money to fight any attempts to revoke it.

Since Java and coffee really don't have anything to do with computing (other than it being the primary component of geek blood), it's a pretty strong trademark.

IANAL, but got that information from an article written by a trademark lawyer years ago.

Re:Strangely Relevant to Oracle vs. Google?

[TaoPhoenix]

Good, someone else noticed this, and I believe it cannot be an accident. I cannot quite tell if the Euro judges accelerated a timeline to get their ruling in first, but the 21st century is quickly becoming the "IP battleground" and this looks like almost an Amicus Curiae from "another jurisdiction".

Re:Strangely Relevant to Oracle vs. Google?

[VortexCortex]

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?

100% coincidence.

Also the judge has instructed the jury to deliberate assuming that the structure, sequence and organisation of the API is copyrightable; They're to determine given if the APIs are sufficiently similar, comparing all 166 Java packages not just the 33 accused,)and if so, if Google has infringed and whether or not they're use is allowed under fair use.

The Judge has not said that APIs can be copyrighted. He reserves that decision for himself, and will only be forced to make such a decision if the jury finds that Google has infringed (assuming the SSO of an API is copyrightable). Since the jury is already deliberating in the Oracle v Google case no new evidence will be presented to them. Although US copyright laws are different than EU law, the Judge knows that his decision could have huge impacts on the software market.

I like Judge Alsup, he's smart. He only has to decide if Google's found to be infringing... Furthermore I think he's begun to understand the absurdity of Oracles claims:

Judge: Question about specification. Your description made it sound like a black box with something inside. You have input on that side and output on that side, and the spec says what the inputs gotta be, and the outputs gotta be, and the implementation is what's in the black box.

Owen Astrachan: That is a very good explanation. I like that explanation.

[Judge smiles]

- Reported Transcript

In the black box analogy the API would be like Google and Oracle both labeling their volume knobs the same name and making clockwise rotation increase the volume... It sounds intuitive that if Google's black box has all the same placement and functions and labels as an Oracle box that they coppied the SSO of the Interface (API) -- However, they must have done so in order to provide interoperability, and courts have made exceptions for such use in the past. As long as the operation manual (code comments) are sufficiently dissimilar I can't see where Oracle has a copyright case. Their patent case is another story.

This EU ruling is interesting to me as a software developer... My fellow game devs are dispersed globally. In the near future we'll be selecting a home base of operations. If the APIs are found copyrightable in the US, but not EU, we may opt to have our base of operations outside the US. (we may do so any way for patent concern reasons -- Fix the damn copyright and patent system USA, it's HURTING your business)

Read the decision

[msobkow]

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.

Re:It's now a free for all for all file fomats! Ye

[erroneus]

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...

This is no news ...

[angel'o'sphere]

European court rules ....
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 ... surprise surprise: not copyrightable

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.

Re:It's now a free for all for all file fomats! Ye

[icebike]

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?

Re:It's now a free for all for all file fomats! Ye

[White Flame]

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".

SAS is running scared

[Thatmushroom]

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.