Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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".