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Jury Rules Google Violated Java Copyright, Google Moves For Mistrial
eldavojohn writes "Details are thin, but the long-covered Oracle v. Google trial has at least partially been decided in favor of Oracle. The jury says Google violated copyrights with Android when it used Java APIs to design the system. Google moved for a mistrial after hearing the incomplete decision. The patent infringement accusations have yet to be ruled upon."
The jury was instructed that APIs were copyrightable. They found that Google infringed Sun/Oracle's Java API. But the judge will actually decide later whether APIs are in fact copyrightable (which question will almost certainly go to the Supreme Court before it's all over).
So what the jury actually decided doesn't mean much. It means that Google copied the Java API. Well, yeah, we knew that already.
This is the same judge that basically told the jury Google was guilty before they started to deliberate. Thus Googles call for a mistrial.
Can you please return your geek credentials? The judge didn't tell the jury Google was guilty, that's about the worst bullshit I've ever heard. The judge told the jury to assume that Oracles stuff was protected by copyright, and _then_ to decide whether the evidence said that Google actually copied or not.
The jury has decided, on the evidence, that Google copied Oracle's APIs. NOW the judge will decide whether this API is protected by copyright or not.
To explain this with a car analogy: There may be a legal argument whether you own a car or not. When you drive away in the car, you are accused of theft. The jury will decide whether there is evidence to prove that you took the car. The judge will decide whether the car was yours (and you were allowed to take it) or not (in which case taking it was theft).
Spoken like a person who has never served on a jury. The jury probably represents the last vestige of true participatory government left in the US. They do great work and deserve our heartfelt thanks. Most decisions by juries that people find to be badly decided are the result of bad instructions from the judge or evidence that has been withheld for one reason or another.
-- QED
Those APIs are providing access to a service. They are not charging for using the API, they are charging for the service. Not the same thing at all.
How about the still-quite-alive-and-American(thus subject to American copyright rulings) Donald Knuth, who is the quite demonstrated owner of a very large selection of API designs?
Well, I, for one, support Google.
They are in the business to sell advertising. If you do not buy advertising, then you have probably never paid a dime directly to Google. I hate to say it, but invading privacy is just part of the business. How MUCH a part of the business is definitely open for debate, however.
It is a balancing act. No invasion of privacy = no money. Too much = evil.
I admit that everything that they have done has NOT been perfect, and there have been many mis-steps. However, for a company of their size, they do indeed manage to be the least evil. To me, Apple is very very evil. Microsoft is evil. Sony is evil. Google is fairly benign.
Name another company that size that is as friendly to open source software. Name another one that gives you as much stuff for free (yes, I know -- paid for by advertising to you). Name another company that actually CARES about not being evil. Apple and Microsoft simply care about the bottom line -- period.
No, Google is not perfect, but they could be a LOT worse, and they seem to actually care.
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
The truth doesn't need to be pleasant to be informative.
Google didn't, Apache did. Google just used Apache Harmony's standard library.
What groups funded/helped with the Apache Harmony project? IBM and *Oracle*.
Now Oracle is suing Google for using the software that *Oracle* helped develop, because they bought the original implementation and want a cut of the Android money.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Maybe so, but this case has nothing to do with those abuses. Google took Apache Harmony (you know, a free, open-source, Apache-licensed implementation of the Java APIs...not GPL, but still open source) and built Android.
Sun was happy about it, Google was happy about it, the Java language got more widely used...
Oracle had a different point of view, wanted money, and had trouble convincing a jury who was *told* to assume that the APIs were copyrightable that the few remaining copyright claims Oracle brought were valid.
...also, in Europe, they just decided rather definitively that APIs are not copyrightable.
The worst part of this all is that now we go on to the "patent" part of the trial, which is just silly because we're talking about software (turning one number into another number based on a set of rules...aka an algorithm, which is not patentable subject matter).
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
If Google admitted that the APIs were substantially similar, then the instruction was perfectly correct. Why should the jury not be reminded that a party admitted an essential element of a judgment of infringement?
The grandparent wrongly attributed the request for a mistrial to the content of the jury instructions. That is not why Google is asking for a mistrial in the copyright phase. Google essentially argued that APIs are not copyrightable (question of law for the judge to resolve, as you touched upon) and that even if the APIs were copyrightable, the use was fair use (question of fact for the jury to resolve). In order for fair use to be relevant, there has to be a prima facie case for copyright infringement. As I understand it Google has conditionally admitted that there is such a case, and raised its fair use defense. The request for a mistrial is due to the fact that the jury did not resolve the key question before it -- was the copyright infringment (if the API is protected by copyright) excused as fair use.
If the jury hangs on a key judgment, it is normal to request a mistrial since the question must be resolved by the jury (absent settlement or agreement by the parties to convert the issue to one to be resolved by a bench decision). A hung verdict does not tranlate into either "guilty" or "not guilty" (in the terms of the discussion -- there is no finding of "guilt" as such in a civil case). A new trial can be held and directed only to the copyright aspect at a later date (assuming no other jury-related issues arise), and the patent phase can proceed.
The issue is that Google set out with j
The Java API manual and recreated them ALL with the same names and function calls, etc... That's pushing it even for open source projects.
As opposed to Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman starting with the UNIX manual and painstakingly recreating all the APIs?
They are in the business to sell advertising. If you do not buy advertising, then you have probably never paid a dime directly to Google. I hate to say it, but invading privacy is just part of the business. How MUCH a part of the business is definitely open for debate, however.
I presonally, would rather pay money to a company, than have them invade my privacy. Of course, I'd like to not have to pay money to them in order to have them not invade my privay –that would be a protection racket.
You can choose not to let them have your private details in any meaningful way. Don't subscribe to any of their services, delete your cookies, and hit the reset button on your router every now and then. They will have search history from you that is only attributable to your local ISP DHCP pool. They should not be able to identify you in any way, unless law enforcement get involved and force the ISP to match the IP address you had at any given time to a real world address.
And Miskaata is right.
Congratulations on agreeing with Miskaata. 2.6M sequential ids and you're within 10 numbers of him. Seems fishy.
Or you could, I don't know... Not use Google services. Wow - revolutionary idea, huh?
Copying the "structure, sequence, and organization" of the Java APIs is the definition of implementing an object-oriented interface, regardless of the specifics of the implementation.
Sure. But jury decision is perfectly logical and reasonable if you start with the premise that APIs are copyrightable (which they were instructed by the judge to do).
By itself, the jury decision (note: there's no ruling yet) does not have any meaning unless and until the judge actually rules that APIs are copyrightable. Logic and common sense dictate that they are not, and his interest in the recent EU decision seems to indicate that he may agree with that. If so, this would actually be better than jury decision because it would then set a precedent regarding API copyrightability, which (unless it gets appealed) would seal this issue in US once and for all.
Wow what? The jury was instructed to assume that APIs are copyrightable. From that assumption, they have logically concluded that Google has indeed infringed on Oracle's copyright - how could they rule otherwise, given that Google did implement the same exact APIs?
This jury decision is 1) fully expected, and 2) means nothing whatsoever until the judge actually decides on the copyrightability.
So don't buy from companies that advertise. They are only spending your money if you give it to them. Buy from others and keep that $1000 to yourself.