Google Takes the Fight With Oracle To the Supreme Court

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Google Takes the Fight With Oracle To the Supreme Court

Posted by timothy on Thursday October 9, 2014 @01:24AM from the by-the-power-your-black-robe-we-beseech-thee dept.

whoever57 writes Google has asked the Supreme Court to review the issue of whether APIs can be copyrighted. Google beat Oracle in the trial court, where a judge with a software background ruled that APIs could not be copyrighted. but the Appeals court sided with Oracle, ruling that APIs can be copyrighted. Now Google is asking the Supreme Court to overturn that decision. (Also of interest.)

146 comments

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

Oracle by Kagetsuki · 2014-10-09 01:27 · Score: 5, Insightful

Fuck you. You are everything wrong with the software industry.
1. Re: Oracle by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 01:38 · Score: 1
  
  I shall copyright my Get() and Put() api
2. Re:Oracle by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 01:40 · Score: 0, Flamebait
  
  Whereas Google is trying its damnedest to make sure there is no software industry, nor data ownership for that matter.
  Really, though, they're two sides of the same data-mining coin, so far up the intelligence industry's ass they're practically mouthpieces.
3. Re:Oracle by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 01:41 · Score: 0
  
  Like everyone didn't already know that.
4. Re:Oracle by i+kan+reed · 2014-10-09 01:42 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  I'm trying to recall slashdot's reaction about a decade ago when the courts said that Microsoft couldn't ship their own version of the JRE with windows to run java applications.
  I think it was lauded as crushing anti-competitive behavior. How is Google shipping their own custom JRE on phones they control 70% of the market for that different? I mean other than that they won't let you override the install with the Oracle version?
  I agree that Oracle can die in a fire, and I will not shed a single tear, but for consistency's sake, is there something different here?
5. Re:Oracle by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 01:54 · Score: 0
  
  I'm trying to recall slashdot's reaction about a decade ago when the courts said that Microsoft couldn't ship their own version of the JRE with windows to run java applications.
  I think it was lauded as crushing anti-competitive behavior. How is Google shipping their own custom JRE on phones they control 70% of the market for that different? I mean other than that they won't let you override the install with the Oracle version?
  I agree that Oracle can die in a fire, and I will not shed a single tear, but for consistency's sake, is there something different here?
  Google fanbois.
6. Re:Oracle by gstoddart · 2014-10-09 01:59 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Hmmm, as I recall, Microsoft shipped something which was so completely not Java as to be laughable.
  They'd taken an existing language, which was intended to be cross platform, and injected (as they usually do) their own platform-specific functions ... and still tried to pass it off as Java.
  But code written to use those extensions wouldn't run anywhere else. Which means Microsoft basically broke the language and the cross-platform intention.
  The Microsoft/Java issue was about intentionally breaking compatibility by adding their own crap.
  Now, contrast that to someone taking the exact same API interfaces, and implementing them properly for compatibility. Further, look at the fact that API interfaces from UNIX have been duplicated for literally decades in order to make something which uses the same interface and allows for code portability. The interface is what you publish to allow others to use it.
  So, if you want consistency, you have to remember these are actually two different issues.
  Microsoft didn't adhere to the published interfaces, and just decided to add their own. That was Sun's lawyers.
  Now, Oracle is saying "you can't copy our API interface because it's super secret and copyrighted". This is Oracle's lawyers.
  Google is saying "you're idiots, this is how programming has worked for decades".
  So, we agree you should be able to adhere to the API interface for compatibility sake. We also don't think you should be doing what Microsoft did, and do their usual "embrace/extend/extinguish" crap.
  And when they got told they weren't allowed to embrace and extend, they dropped it altogether and came out with .NET.
  Oracle is actually making a different argument than Sun was at the time.
  
  --
  Lost at C:>. Found at C.
7. Re:Oracle by Nikademus · 2014-10-09 01:59 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, there is something different. Google never told that what you called their "JRE" is a replacement for the oracle one, or should even be considered like this. It's there for a completely different purpose.
  While MS claimed that their JRE was a replacement for Oracle one and did break compatibility all the way.
  
  --
  I gave up with the idea of an useful sig...
8. Re:Oracle by Kagetsuki · 2014-10-09 02:01 · Score: 1
  
  You're talking about Visual J or whatever, and it was a big thing because they customized it and made it so it was no longer standard Java. Write code for Visual J and often it wouldn't work for regular Java. There were a bunch of windows-only extensions and stuff too.
9. Re:Oracle by i+kan+reed · 2014-10-09 02:11 · Score: 1
  
  No, I'm not talking about J#, which was a separate mistake whose cancellation lead to C# instead(which was much better).
10. Re:Oracle by TheSunborn · 2014-10-09 02:14 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Nobody ever said that Microsoft could not ship their own version of the JRE, and Microsoft newer made their own JRE.
  Microsoft distributed a modified version of suns jre, based on source code licensed from Sun. And it was sourcecode licerse, which gave Microsoft problems. If they had just made their own jre, anything would have been fine(Except for the fact that they might not have called it Java(tm)
11. Re:Oracle by shaitand · 2014-10-09 02:15 · Score: 2
  
  "I think it was lauded as crushing anti-competitive behavior. How is Google shipping their own custom JRE on phones they control 70% of the market for that different?"
  
  For one 70% is nowhere near the market dominance that 96% is. Android is hardly the only game in town on phones and android, unlike windows, is an open platform.
  
  But that is hardly the important issue here. If API's become copyrightable that impacts almost every piece of software... on every platform. You don't have to file to have a copyright they are auto-magic whether registered or not. You scribble a poem on a napkin it is copyrighted.
12. Re:Oracle by BarbaraHudson · 2014-10-09 02:18 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  How is Google shipping their own custom JRE on phones they control 70% of the market for that different?
  Android phones don't run Java, and don't come with a JRE.
  
  --
  "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
13. Re:Oracle by prsephton · 2014-10-09 02:28 · Score: 2
  
  Well, actually, the issue was never whether or not Microsoft could ship it's own version of the JRE. The issue was rather that Microsoft had extended the Java API with it's own functions. Developers had started to use those functions, making applications written for the Microsoft JRE not backward compatible to Sun's JRE, and was thus subverting the standard.
  Sun used the court to assert it's ownership over the standard, and the court ruled that Microsoft could not extend the standard. Microsoft, finding itself unable to embrace and extend with the ostensible view to usurping ownership of Java, decided instead to build their own competing product. Hence the birth of C# and the common language runtime.
  The issue around Google's use of the API for Android is very different. The article says that the argument was that the Java API's are "needed to write compatible code" and so should not be copyrightable. If you followed the court case, you would know that the actual argument was that API's are not works of art, but rather a way to define a standard interface, and since copyright law covers works of art, API's should not be subject to copyright law. There were also a bunch of patents covered in the same court case, but these were ruled out relatively early on- with the exception of the rangecheck() function which was debated to death.
  Android API makes no attempt to sell itself as a language suitable for back-porting apps to Java. Google did not copy Oracles implementation code for the Java API's, but does copy some of the Java API (definition, or application interface) code.
  Android apps are initially compiled to Java ByteCode, but upon installation the Java Bytecode is compiled to another instruction format suitable for the Dalvik VM. There was another big hoo hah raised about Google copying the byte code, until it was realised that every Java developer on the planet does this too.
  Google literally used the existing Java ecosystem as a working base, giving them a language and a compiler that produced Java Bytecode. They then built an installer that compiles Java Bytecode to their own Dalvic VM code format, and added a bunch of Android-specific libraries and API's on top if that. Oracle feel that although Java was made free by Sun, that there is "free", and then there is "free". They want their slice of the pie, and perhaps even deserve it. However, one gets the feeling that they may have had more luck by approaching Google directly with some sort of Java support contract than going to the courts on this one.
14. Re: Oracle by jrumney · 2014-10-09 02:30 · Score: 1
  
  Microsoft misused Suns trademark with clear intent to poison the pool of cross platform Java Applets that were the focus of Java at the time by encouraging developers to use Windows specific APIs. From the start, Google had its own ecosystem and called its VM Dalvik to differentiate it.
15. Re:Oracle by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 02:37 · Score: 1
  
  Oracle is actually making a different argument than Sun was at the time.
  Sorta. It is basically 'we control java and no one else'. It is the same argument again. They do not want anyone adding to the language but the gatekeepers.
  The jvm from ms *WAS* the better one out there. No one I knew installed the sun one if they could help it. It was orders of magnitude slower.
  MS put java on every desktop out there by default. Then Sun did not like that they lost control. The java language suffered heavily for that. It went overnight from 'this is what we will be writing in the future in' to 'only backend servers use it' and then only because 'the old stuff is that way'. Java finally after 15 years started adding (in 1.7 and 1.8) features that pretty much all other languages had since the mid 80s. But then you still have to write to the 1.6 interface because who knows what your software will land on.
16. Re:Oracle by Kagetsuki · 2014-10-09 02:45 · Score: 1
  
  Visual J++: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V...
  First paragraph starts with:
  "While J++ conformed to the Java language specification, Microsoft did not implement certain features of the official Sun Java implementation in its Visual J++ product line. Remote Method Invocation (Java RMI) and Java Native Interface (JNI) are such examples.[2][3]
  In addition, J++ implemented other extensions that were not part of Sun's Java implementation. The inclusion of callbacks and delegates for event handling further contributed to defining J++ as a completely different language merely based on an already existing design concept."
  Not really worth reading past that... Also someone further down in the comments here covered it in detail.
17. Re:Oracle by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 02:46 · Score: 0
  
  Visual J++ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_J%2B%2B) then?
18. Re:Oracle by binarylarry · 2014-10-09 02:50 · Score: 1, Funny
  
  Mod parent up!
  
  --
  Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
19. Re:Oracle by Sun · 2014-10-09 02:53 · Score: 1
  
  The action against Microsoft was based on anti-competitive acts, founded on the assumption (validated by the court) that Microsoft is a monopoly.
  This action is based on strict copyright. Oracle is not alleging that Google are trying to harm Java, just that they didn't have the right to do what they did.
  Shachar
20. Re:Oracle by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 02:58 · Score: 0
  
  Nobody ever said that Microsoft could not ship their own version of the JRE, and Microsoft newer made their own JRE.
  Microsoft distributed a modified version of suns jre, based on source code licensed from Sun. And it was sourcecode licerse, which gave Microsoft problems. If they had just made their own jre, anything would have been fine(Except for the fact that they might not have called it Java(tm)
  What do you base that assumption on?
  That question was never reached in Sun v. Microsoft because Microsoft blatantly violated the license agreement they had with Sun.
21. Re:Oracle by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 02:58 · Score: 0
  
  The Microsoft/Java issue was about intentionally breaking compatibility by adding their own crap.
  A slightly pedantic, however important correction: Sun wasn't mad about adding stuff, every JVM had its own additions. What Microsoft did to get sued was going out of their way to violate every single rule Sun had for implementation specific features.
  - Library extensions could be provided using the package structure ( sun.* , com.microsoft.* ) Microsoft put everything into java.*
  - The JVM handles byte code, writing your own language? No problem, Microsoft wrote J and called it Java
  - A JVM has to implement the Spec. Microsoft didn't provide all required APIs and instead provided COM wrappers to its own libraries. ...
22. Re:Oracle by Charliemopps · 2014-10-09 03:05 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  I'm trying to recall slashdot's reaction about a decade ago when the courts said that Microsoft couldn't ship their own version of the JRE with windows to run java applications.
  I think it was lauded as crushing anti-competitive behavior. How is Google shipping their own custom JRE on phones they control 70% of the market for that different? I mean other than that they won't let you override the install with the Oracle version?
  I agree that Oracle can die in a fire, and I will not shed a single tear, but for consistency's sake, is there something different here?
  Yea, it's amazing how the public sides with the company that isn't trying to screw them at every turn.
  Google is generally nice to us...
  Microsoft and Oracle are about the biggest Jerks in tech...
  Funny how that works, eh?
  A similar situation:
  I hate you because you slept with my wife, and you snag a beer our of my fridge? My reaction would be?
  You just gave me a ride home after my car broken down, and you snag a beer our of the fridge. My reaction again?
  Is that a double standard?
23. Re:Oracle by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 03:18 · Score: 1
  
  I'm trying to recall slashdot's reaction about a decade ago when the courts said that Microsoft couldn't ship their own version of the JRE with windows to run java applications.
  No such thing ever happened, but there was a something similar. You're probably thinking of the 1997 Sun vs. Microsoft case over MSJVM. In that case it was demonstrated that Microsoft deliberately made an incompatible implementation of Java so that Java programs wouldn't run properly for Windows users unless the programs were designed specifically for Microsoft's Java, and that programs designed for Microsoft's Java wouldn't work on non-Microsoft implementations, in order to destroy any cross-platform benefits that Java had and hijack control of Sun's platform. Microsoft also violated swathes of contract, trademark and anti-trust laws in the process of making sure that users had Microsoft's implementation instead of any of the certified ones.
  In this case, Oracle is claiming that Google is violating its copyright by making some parts of Android (not Java) API-compatible with the Java framework.
  The two cases are nothing alike, aside from each involving Java in some way or another.
  
  In short, Microsoft feared and sought to impede the development of network effects that cross-platform technology like Netscape Navigator and Java might enjoy and use to challenge Microsoft's monopoly. Another internal Microsoft document indicates that the plan was not simply to blunt Java/browser cross-platform momentum, but to destroy the cross-platform threat entirely, with the "Strategic Objective" described as to "Kill cross-platform Java by grow[ing] the polluted Java market."
  - Memorandum of the United States in Support of Motion for Preliminary Injunction
24. Re:Oracle by Derekloffin · 2014-10-09 03:27 · Score: 1
  
  One must remember that the previous case was a matter of trademark, not copyright. Microsoft was deemed to be improperly using the Java trademark in their marketing for J++ (this due to J++ not meeting the Java compatibility standard). Didn't stop MS from making similar API's, they just couldn't call them Java compatible. Also, MS at the time had a license for Java making the previous lawsuit even more dissimilar to the current one.
25. Re:Oracle by drinkypoo · 2014-10-09 03:36 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Sorta. It is basically 'we control java and no one else'. It is the same argument again
  No, it is not. It is a different argument about the same assertion.
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
26. Re:Oracle by alen · 2014-10-09 03:47 · Score: 1
  
  and when sites use their own API's to access youtube outside the official API, google cries foul and starts sending C&D letters
27. Re:Oracle by Kagetsuki · 2014-10-09 03:55 · Score: 1
  
  I'm hoestly hoping to get something like "+3, Flamebait" :P
28. Re: Oracle by Zombywuf · 2014-10-09 04:06 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  You mean where Google comes along, does a ton of work, and for some reason doesn't think it should have to pay someone else for the work they did?
  Seems completely fair to me.
  
  --
  If you can read this you've gone too far.
29. Re: Oracle by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 04:08 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  You're forgetting that Sun Microsystems was responsible for Java, and google went ahead on Android with Sun's blessing. Only aftrer Orcale bought them out did this animosity start.
  Java was open sourced. You cannot retroactively change your mind if you become bitter that somebody built something really great with it and is being rewarded for it. That's the point of such licenses. Nobody would trust open source otherwise.
30. Re:Oracle by Curunir_wolf · 2014-10-09 04:08 · Score: 1
  
  Sorta. It is basically 'we control java and no one else'. It is the same argument again. They do not want anyone adding to the language but the gatekeepers.
  That had nothing to do with the technology, just the Java(tm) trademark. Google didn't do anything that used the Java(tm) trademark.
  
  --
  "Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
  --- Jerry Garcia
31. Re: Oracle by ShanghaiBill · 2014-10-09 04:11 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Do you think that's fair, or legal?
  Yes. The purpose of copyright is to protect creativity, not work. The "sweat of the brow" doctrine has been rejected by the US Supreme Court. The creativity should be what lies behind the API, not the API itself. The API itself allows for NO creativity, since even the slightest deviation causes it to fail. Therefore APIs should not be copyrightable. Furthermore, there is a compelling public interest in a competitive market for software, and locked down APIs are a hindrance to that.
32. Re: Oracle by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 04:25 · Score: 1
  
  Sun's blessing? Sun had asked 100 million from Goolge and had given legal notices to Google before it was acquired. Oh, and Google high level employees themselves were of the opinion that this is illegal. Android makes are already paying billions of dollars to MS and not a dime to Oracle.
33. Re: Oracle by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 04:28 · Score: 0
  
  " The API itself allows for NO creativity"
  Have you written any complex api? I am in software industry for 28 years and in every projects that I have worked, I spend more time on api design than implementation. It requires lots of ingenuity and creativity to come up with a set of api. Not much different than coming up with a plot for movie with intricate relations between characters and their personalities.
34. Re: Oracle by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 04:33 · Score: 0
  
  Do you think that's fair, or legal?
  Absolutely.
35. Re: Oracle by gnupun · 2014-10-09 04:44 · Score: 0
  
  The purpose of copyright is to protect creativity, not work. The "sweat of the brow" doctrine has been rejected [wikipedia.org] by the US Supreme Court. The creativity should be what lies behind the API, not the API itself.
  LOLOL, API design creativity is second only to language design creativity. If it was so trivial "sweat of the brow" type issue, why didn't google completely design their own API instead of simply lifting it?
  Implementing API can be "sweat of the brow" type work, but designing non-trivial API is difficult without creativity.
  
  The API itself allows for NO creativity, since even the slightest deviation causes it to fail. Therefore APIs should not be copyrightable.
  When MS cloned Java as C#, they tweaked the language grammar and keywords, and completely redesigned the API (although it was still inspired by Java API). Why didn't google redesign their API like MS? Your "slightest deviation causes it to fail" argument is bullshit.
36. Re: Oracle by TheRaven64 · 2014-10-09 04:52 · Score: 2
  
  Yes and it's essential for a thriving industry. Imagine where Linux and *BSD would be, for example, if The Open Group had been able to enforce copyright on the POSIX APIs. There'd be no *NIX systems, no WINE, no drop-in replacements for any library when the author stops supporting it..
  
  --
  I am TheRaven on Soylent News
37. Re: Oracle by ShanghaiBill · 2014-10-09 05:24 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  It requires lots of ingenuity and creativity to come up with a set of api.
  Sure, but someone else cannot then use different ingenuity and creativity to reimplement the API so that their API works with the same third party applications. They have no choice but to reimplement it exactly. There is precedent for these sorts of interfaces being non-copyrightable. See Lexmark vs SCC. That was a case of Lexmark trying to copyright the handshake protocol to keep third parties from producing compatible printer cartridges. This is the same issue.
  
  Not much different than coming up with a plot for movie with intricate relations between characters and their personalities.
  This is not a valid analogy, because someone else can make a movie with a different plot, and it will still work in the same movie projectors.
38. Re: Oracle by gnupun · 2014-10-09 05:29 · Score: 0
  
  That was a case of Lexmark trying to copyright the handshake protocol to keep third parties from producing compatible printer cartridges.
  Are you stating google apps can't call Linux system APIs except through Java APIs? Java is not a system API... it's a middle layer between the apps and the system.
39. Re:Oracle by rahvin112 · 2014-10-09 05:30 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Microsoft lost because they had a contract with Sun which said they wouldn't modify the Java Runtime to be incompatible with the standard. They did exactly that. Sun was pretty much guaranteed a win because they had a contract with MS.
  Would Sun win if MS had never signed a contract and done a clean room implementation of Java and not called it Java? That I suppose would depend on whether API's are copyrightable which is what Google is asking the court to review.
40. Re: Oracle by TheRaven64 · 2014-10-09 05:32 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Since it's copyrighted, but not patented (or patentable), you could redesign Linux or *BSD APIs that are similar in principle and operation as the POSIX APIs, but not a complete copy.
  Which would have meant that porting code from UNIX to Linux/*NIX would have required shim layers. Worse, it would mean that every program that uses these APIs would be a derived work of UNIX and the UNIX license could prohibit the use of such shim layers.
  
  Just because it affects your pet project does not make it legal.
  It's not about my 'pet project', it's about the entire computing landscape. I'd actually be quite happy with a ruling in favour of Oracle: it would completely destroy a large segment of the US software industry and promote investment nearer me...
  
  --
  I am TheRaven on Soylent News
41. Re: Oracle by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 05:32 · Score: 0
  
  APIs are not creative work.
  If I write
  int getID();
  int setID():
  and copyright that, and sue anyone who uses my API. Then I'm not promoting the sciences and useful art, and my copyright isn't protecting anything remotely creative. The implementation is the creative part. If they reverse engineer what the getID() or setID() does, then there is a problem. If they create a compatible getID() and setID(), they are within the letter of the law. The appeals court is wrong. I hope the SCOTUS sees that, or else Linux, BSD, WINE, and Oracle (ironically) etc. are all going to attacked in court again by SCO and this time SCO could actually win.
42. Re: Oracle by h4ck7h3p14n37 · 2014-10-09 05:38 · Score: 2
  
  Facts cannot be copyrighted. A collection of function signatures compromising an API are just a bunch of facts, thus not eligible.
43. Re: Oracle by ShanghaiBill · 2014-10-09 05:45 · Score: 2
  
  Are you stating google apps can't call Linux system APIs except through Java APIs?
  No, I am not saying they can't. I am saying they shouldn't have to. Interfaces should not be copyrightable, and there is legal precedent for that. Oracle is not using copyright law to protect their creativity, they are using it to lock-in customers, and suppress competition. The courts gave Lexmark a firm smackdown for doing that, and they should give Oracle a smackdown as well.
  The US Constitution justifies copyright by stating that a temporary protection of creativity benefits the public by encouraging artists and innovators. There is no public interest in protecting interfaces.
44. Re: Oracle by gnupun · 2014-10-09 05:53 · Score: 1
  
  You can't copyright words (like "tree" or "exclamation") of the English language. You also cannot copyright short phrases (because there's a good chance someone else will come up with it without copying from you). However, anything longer that took some creativity to create is certainly copyrightable.
  If you imagine a single method like getID() to be similar to a word (or a short phrase) of the English language, it can't be copyrighted. But when you have hundreds or even thousands of such API declarations that are closely related to each other, some would argue they are similar to a book or a short story and therefore copyrightable.
45. Re: Oracle by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 05:54 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Well, Sun did throw a bit of a stinkbomb with the open-source Java versions, refusing to let them do the Java Compatability tests without paying, but they finally relented on that one.
  Then there's the animosity Sun had towards Tomcat, too, being a better J2EE stack than Sun's.
  This was all well before Oracle had bought Sun...
46. Re: Oracle by RobertM1968 · 2014-10-09 05:55 · Score: 1
  
  " The API itself allows for NO creativity"
  Have you written any complex api? I am in software industry for 28 years and in every projects that I have worked, I spend more time on api design than implementation. It requires lots of ingenuity and creativity to come up with a set of api. Not much different than coming up with a plot for movie with intricate relations between characters and their personalities.
  You need to re-read what ShangaiBill wrote. I will expound on it in parens.
  
  The creativity should be what lies behind the API (call/name), not the API (call/name) itself.
  
  --
  StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
47. Re: Oracle by i.kazmi · 2014-10-09 06:11 · Score: 0
  
  I recon the purpose was to give developers a programming language they were familiar with, a programming language which was already widely used, creating a language from the ground up would have forced developers to learn a new programming language or ignore the platform, why is that so hard to understand?
48. Re: Oracle by haapi · 2014-10-09 06:17 · Score: 1
  
  I believe the courts forced IBM to share APIs for their front-end processors mainframe links so that Comten products could access them.
  
  --
  Well, apparently, you only have to fool the majority of people for a little while.
49. Re: Oracle by suutar · 2014-10-09 06:25 · Score: 1
  
  I think that's the entire purpose of an API - allowing interoperability. The goal of interoperability has been found to be sufficient justification to allow reverse engineering of undocumented APIs; if you document your API, you're expecting folks to use it. So yeah, it's both fair and legal for them to use it. And sure, most folks expect the users of an API to treat it as a spec on how clients talk to the server, but it's equally a spec on how the server talks to the clients, and I see no reason why writing a new server that talks to existing clients is any less legitimate than writing a new client that talks to an existing server.
  Now, the _data_ that the server may have and provide is a different matter. If I build a server that can talk to your clients, I have to come up with my own data to talk to them about. But that's not part of the API.
50. Re: Oracle by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 06:31 · Score: 1
  
  You mean where Google comes along, does a ton of work, and for some reason doesn't think it should have to pay someone else for the work they did?
  Seems completely fair to me.
  Uhm.. the "tons of work" Google did was to reimplement Java in a way that was compatible but hopefully not infringing..
51. Re:Oracle by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 06:42 · Score: 0
  
  You're talking about their service. Their service of serving up video. Using anything but their official API is against their Terms of Service . Nothing afoul about that.
52. Re: Oracle by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 06:43 · Score: 0
  
  Usage of client program to call this API is not an issue. The issue here is copying the entire API in a totally independent use case. If you write your own java program, you are not violating copyrights. If you write a java program so that it works on JBOSS J2EE server is also fine. Creating a brand new mobile OS and providing java as api to program so that Google does not have to invent language/api/IDE is the issue. There was no compatibility need. In the case of Lexmark vs SCC, one side was trying to connect with other side which was already programmed to use Lexmark handshake algorithm and hence SCC had no choice but to use that handshake. The handshake had no creative element, its sole function was to identify that it is a Lexmark cartridge and anyone wants to make the cartridge to connect to Lexmark printer has to implement that. Can google make such claim? Can they say that all of world's mobile phone networks connects to phones via java and hence without java, they can't have mobile phones?
53. Re: Oracle by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 06:55 · Score: 0
  
  Java api are not secret like the IBM apis were. Court only made IBM to share what the apis were. That is different than court telling IBM to let other processors implement the same api.
54. Re:Oracle by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 06:59 · Score: 0
  
  What if I give you a ride home, and then sleep with your wife?
55. Re: Oracle by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 07:09 · Score: 0
  
  What you have expounded is exactly what I am talking about. I am not talking about call names or arg names. Instead I am talking about what each api is supposed to do. Even if google renames method names, class names, arg names, it would still be a copy. Think more like a detailed javadoc describing what each class/method/interface does. What will it return, when will it fail, what are the valid values for inputs, is it synchronized or not. These are all important aspects in api design and they are not obvious. Thus add(a,b) might not require any creativity, but a complete interface like ServletRequest requires lot of work to come up with. It could easily take many man days just to come up with such an interface. This is an explicit java feature. Web browsers don't understand this so the servers don't have to implement. So if C# or something else comes up with exact same ServletRequest interface, and if I am the author of the original, I would definitely sue them.
56. Re: Oracle by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 07:29 · Score: 1
  
  So what, exactly, did Google steal?
57. Re: Oracle by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 07:37 · Score: 0
  
  Because then it wouldn't be familiar to Java developers. Why learn a whole new language to develop for one mobile platform, instead of just using the language you already know?
58. Re: Oracle by lwoggardner · 2014-10-09 07:39 · Score: 1
  
  The compatibility need is for 3rd party java code -libraries etc- not written by oracle but useful for everyone else. These libraries are written to the java api spec
59. Re: Oracle by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 07:41 · Score: 0
  
  "This is not a valid analogy, because someone else can make a movie with a different plot, and it will still work in the same movie projectors." Apparently, that does require licensing. It is just that movie makers and theaters pay as part of purchase of the equipments. The equipment makers pay hell lot of money to IP holders so that the movies made by movie makes work in the same movie projectors.
60. Re: Oracle by fahrbot-bot · 2014-10-09 08:05 · Score: 1
  
  The US Constitution justifies copyright by stating that a temporary protection of creativity benefits the public by encouraging artists and innovators.
  
  Did Disney ever get that memo?
  
  --
  It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
61. Re: Oracle by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 09:27 · Score: 0
  
  Why it is so hard for you to understand that Sun spent billions of dollars to develop such a language and promote it and Google wants to use it then it must share some costs too?
62. Re: Oracle by JoelKatz · 2014-10-09 09:55 · Score: 1
  
  All these things are purely functional though. Copyright doesn't protect functional aspects, you need patents for that.
  Say you have two programs that work together. What you can change on each side are the creative implementation choices. What is required for them to work are the functional aspects. By "API", we specifically mean the functional parts needed for the two to work together and are specifically ignoring the implementation choices that each side can make however it wants.
63. Re: Oracle by JoelKatz · 2014-10-09 09:59 · Score: 1
  
  Right, but the question is whether that copyright is enforceable against another implementation of that same API. For example, in Lexmark v. SCC, the Toner Loading Program was held to be copyrightable, but the copyright was not enforceable against SCC because SCC's use of the TLP was purely functional.
  Something can be copyrightable but that copyright not enforceable if the use of the work is purely functional and used in a way where it is not practical to achieve the same result in any other way than using the covered work. Interoperating with implementations of the API is a functional goal, and if you *must* use the API to do that, then the API's copyright is not enforceable against those using it to achieve that functional purpose.
  If you want to own every way to do achieve a particular functional result, you need a patent.
64. Re: Oracle by i.kazmi · 2014-10-09 10:36 · Score: 0
  
  You forgot to mention that Dalvik is a clean room implementation by Google, besides the names of the classes and functions (along with the types of their return values and parameters), something that was published as part of the language specification (I believe), Google has not copied anything from the original implementation. So is Oracle suing Google for following the language spec of Java or for coming out with a clean room implementation of the said language spec? Either way, Oracle is being asinine and if they do manage to somehow scrape a win, I look forward to Bell Labs suing the pants off of the entire computing industry what with there being dozens of implementations of the C/C++ api and no one paying royalties for them.
65. Re: Oracle by aberglas · 2014-10-09 11:42 · Score: 1
  
  The original purpose of copyright was to *promote* creativity. The current purpose is to protect mickey mouse, 70 years after production.
  Legally it is pretty obvious that an API is copyrightable. If Google had used the same ideas in the API, but expressed them differently with different function names, arguments etc. then fine. But this is an exact copy.
  The law is, of course, bullshit. It is the SCOTUS job to defend the law. Fortunately we can rely on our elected representatives to improve laws as circumstances change ... not.
  IBM and others have a long history of patenting pointless aspects of plugs and interfaces to prevent competition.
  (I always thought that it was dumb of Google to copy the API. Why risk everything on a legal case?)
66. Re: Oracle by Xicor · 2014-10-09 13:12 · Score: 1
  
  the issue here is that they took the api and changed the code in the background. the api itself is nothing but a bunch of method names. the code in the back is obviously patentable. the question is whether a bunch of method names are, and i would say no... but the supreme court is made of a bunch of old people who dont even know how to use phones.
67. Re: Oracle by sirlark · 2014-10-09 19:10 · Score: 2
  
  It does NOT require creativity. It requires logic. I do this for a living too, and have done so for 30 years. Two people trying to solve the same problem (developing a communications protocol, because that's what an API is) are almost always going to come up with the same solution. Even if they don't, the number of possible solutions is small, and it's NOT a creative choice picking one above the other, it's a technical choice.
68. Re: Oracle by cthulhu11 · 2014-10-10 04:53 · Score: 1
  
  Didn't this all get sorted out decades ago with Amdahl vs IBM ??
69. Re: Oracle by middlebass · 2014-10-10 09:00 · Score: 1
  
  Back in the early 1970s, as an IBM mainframe systems programmer, I copied APIs to add functionality. E.g., the program that read JOB cards was JOBCTLA. If I wanted to extract accounting info from the job card, I would rename the IBM module to JOBCTXA and replace the original with my own version. It would do what I wanted, and then call the IBM version.
70. Re: Oracle by gnupun · 2014-10-10 20:16 · Score: 1
  
  if you *must* use the API to do that, then the API's copyright is not enforceable against those using it to achieve that functional purpose.
  Does Android *have* to use Java APIs to accomplish its tasks? No. They can (and should) design their own APIs, something different from the standard Java API.
  
  If you want to own every way to do achieve a particular functional result, you need a patent.
  I assume you're writing about utility patents. Those are given only to unique, not-seen-before type inventions. There is nothing that remarkably inventive about a String, Hashtable or Set class that deserves a patent.
  I think APIs deserve a new type of protection, somewhere between copyright and a design patent. Something like this would express exactly what parts of the API can be copied and what parts cannot.
Mute your sound by Deadstick · 2014-10-09 01:33 · Score: 0

Offensively loud bushwhack ad on that site.
Of your peers by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 01:42 · Score: 0

Should there be special appellate courts for specific industries staffed with judges who know both the law and the industry?
this aught to be a riot. by nimbius · 2014-10-09 01:43 · Score: 5, Funny

Sonia Sotomayor: isnt...didnt steve jobs invent API's when he did the iPod?
Stephen G. Breyer: im pretty sure its bread...ive had an API before and it gave me horrible gas.
Samuel A. Alito: no guys seriously its Oracle this is about religion. the API is like a god, but also a man i think.
Elena Kagan: I believe API is the knob on the old chairs that used to control that horrible frontward tilt feature we all hated. Oracle owns that?
Clarence Thomas:: zzzZZZZzzzzzZZZZzzzz
Antonin Scalia: It should be outlawed. these damn hooligans play their API at four in the morning and I hate rap bands.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts: I dont know about you guys but I rather liked the front tilty chairs...just sayin'
Anthony Kennedy: does everyone get an API or just some people. does this disenfranchise minorities or is there an API for everyone?
Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Youre all wrong. I just had the API serviced in my mercedes benz last month. im pretty sure its the part that works with the seat warmer or cooler or something.

--
Good people go to bed earlier.
1. Re:this aught to be a riot. by hsmith · 2014-10-09 01:46 · Score: 1
  
  Sadly this is closer to reality
2. Re: this aught to be a riot. by mimeflu · 2014-10-09 01:49 · Score: 0
  
  Better off having monkeys decide the issue.
3. Re:this aught to be a riot. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 02:30 · Score: 0
  
  Also, in a rare double-whammy decision the court finds polygamy constitutional.
4. Re:this aught to be a riot. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 03:57 · Score: 0
  
  This deserves a wider audience than just slashdot.
  Would somebody please forward parent post to xkcd?
5. Re:this aught to be a riot. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 05:38 · Score: 0
  
  That is horribly irreverent of their positions, and completely disrespectful. It is also true. And terrifically funny. I approve.
6. Re:this aught to be a riot. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 10:34 · Score: 0
  
  Great, now all government databases are going to have to change spouse SSN from a single field to an association table. Polygamy will take years to implement.
Oracle wouldn't even exist today... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 01:45 · Score: 1

If Oracle has their way, then IBM should be able to sue them out of existence since their entire business was based on copying IBM's database source code and APIs to make the Oracle Database.
1. Re:Oracle wouldn't even exist today... by 4wdloop · 2014-10-09 04:12 · Score: 1
  
  If SC decides APIs are copyright-able then IBM should be able to sue them...and they should do it.
  
  --
  4wdloop
2. Re:Oracle wouldn't even exist today... by TheRaven64 · 2014-10-09 04:56 · Score: 1
  
  It wouldn't be the first time that lawyers from one company have been arguing opposite things at the same time in different cases. If the other side is alert, then they'll enter court transcripts from the other case into their testimony.
  
  --
  I am TheRaven on Soylent News
3. Re:Oracle wouldn't even exist today... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 05:30 · Score: 0
  
  Which api oracle copied? SQL construct? Even if IBM can prove that this is copyrightable, IBM waited too long after knowing the copyright violation, so the case will be thrown out. Even if didn't for that reason, the IBM is part of SQL standards group which implicitly parted with their exclusive rights on it, so IBM can only sue for damages prior to that. Given the fact that Oracle was too small at that time, the total damage IBM can ask wouldn't be worth lawyer's fee.
4. Re: Oracle wouldn't even exist today... by BitwizeGHC · 2014-10-09 06:36 · Score: 1
  
  Didn't IBM intimidate a would-be litigant out of suing by threatening to sue them on the same claims once before? IBM is like the big brother asterisk from the Pink Panther cartoon "Pink Punch"...
  
  --
  N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
Oracle trying to undo the GPL decision by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 01:49 · Score: 5, Insightful

Oracle are clearly trying to pull Java back from public domain and back to within Oracles control to undo the GPL license Java is under. It's a clever lawyer trick, but Java itself uses copyrighted APIs.
Java was not the first to use Vector, or String classes or Views or any other API and classes it built on. It would be difficult to even identify which *names* of classes are actually new APIs and which are copied from others.
In Oracle's mind, it thinks if it can get away with this is can seize Android, which contains a Java compatible API named set, even though it doesn't use Java and the code is not theirs. But that API set is itself copied from many previous products.
Why do we have trademarks if you can copyright the name of something? (Which is what an API is, its the names of the methods).
1. Re:Oracle trying to undo the GPL decision by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 03:18 · Score: 0
  
  OpenJDK is doing quite well.
2. Re:Oracle trying to undo the GPL decision by sribe · 2014-10-09 03:40 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  It's a clever lawyer trick, but Java itself uses copyrighted APIs.
  I think you mean Java itself uses pre-existing APIs. As far as I know, no API has ever been copyright, and Oracle's claim is an attempt to ram through a breathtaking expansion in the scope of copyright for software.
3. Re:Oracle trying to undo the GPL decision by ADRA · 2014-10-09 04:26 · Score: 1
  
  As of -whenever it was- no copyright attribution needs to be asserted in order to apply. As long as the classes, or their structure were leveraged from others' works. Take 'Pair', 'Triple' as an example. In Java, there's no Pair, but many people like to associate two entities together in a free-form way. To do this, you:
  Make a constructor with optionally 2,1,0 arguments
  Setter for the first item (optional)
  Getter for the first item
  Setter for the second item (optional)
  Getter for the second item
  That API will be all but identical to the hundreds if not thousands of distinct implementations of Pair. As a construct, Pair has probably existed for several decades, and its rather shocking to assume that any primitive construct can be copyrighted by the 'first guy to come up with it'. In fact, it will certifiably lead to the end of software development as a whole (at least in the US) if such a ridiculously broad claim is upheld.
  
  --
  Bye!
4. Re:Oracle trying to undo the GPL decision by tlhIngan · 2014-10-09 04:48 · Score: 0
  
  Oracles control to undo the GPL license Java is under.
  Oracle gave a free license for J2SE, whereas Android and mobile devices use J2ME (which costs $$$ and is the money-maker side of Java - Oracle gives squat about J2SE or J2EE because they aren't profit centers).
  And it's really a patent license - that as long as your implementation is J2SE compatible, you're good.
  Of course, if it's really about whether APIs can be copyrighted, this can have far-reach decisions, because it places a bunch of GPL'd stuff on the line. E.g., in the Linux kernel, there are a bunch of utility functions that are exported to GPL-only kernel modules (EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL). If copyright doesn't apply, then GPL protections can't apply either (since GPL requires copyright in order to function - the GPL grants you rights if you agree to terms, if you don't agree, you agree to standard copyright). And the kernel devs have looked down on proprietary drivers deliberately working around limitations to call those functions.
  GPL'd libraries are fine - since the library implementation is GPL'd. But it also means that someone else can use the same APIs and make a non-GPL'd version of the library for proprietary code, like say a non-free version of readline.
5. Re:Oracle trying to undo the GPL decision by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 05:31 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Oracle gave a free license for J2SE, whereas Android and mobile devices use J2ME (which costs $$$ and is the money-maker side of Java - Oracle gives squat about J2SE or J2EE because they aren't profit centers).
  Android and mobiles devices use Dalvik. The only thing that is Java related is the syntax which goes into the compiler, the stuff that comes out the other side of the compilation process is not Java bytecode and is not compatible with the Java runtime.
  
  And it's really a patent license - that as long as your implementation is J2SE compatible, you're good.
  You cannot file a patent for the single line of code "int printf(const char *, ...);", the API is literally a statement of a problem in the absence of the solution. The solution is the implementation of the code inside the functions which is the only part that is patentable.
  
  Of course, if it's really about whether APIs can be copyrighted, this can have far-reach decisions, because it places a bunch of GPL'd stuff on the line. E.g., in the Linux kernel, there are a bunch of utility functions that are exported to GPL-only kernel modules (EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL). If copyright doesn't apply, then GPL protections can't apply either (since GPL requires copyright in order to function - the GPL grants you rights if you agree to terms, if you don't agree, you agree to standard copyright). And the kernel devs have looked down on proprietary drivers deliberately working around limitations to call those functions.
  You fail. That is the opposite way around: all proprietary code is banned from touching the kernel at all by default; they have exceptions to the GPL which permits certain functions to be used without invoking the GPL's requirements. Those protections are based on the derivative works rule and applies because the finished binary is formed by combining actual code from the kernel. This does create a limitation which nVidia exploits with their module, i.e. if you build it on the end user machine and never copy it to a different computer then the GPL doesn't matter since it only controls distribution. Of course, if APIs being copyrighted is possible then this whole discussion is moot since Linux implements the POSIX API which would be wholly owned by AT&T (via Bell Labs) so Linux would be pretty dead.
  
  GPL'd libraries are fine - since the library implementation is GPL'd. But it also means that someone else can use the same APIs and make a non-GPL'd version of the library for proprietary code, like say a non-free version of readline.
  And this would be a problem why? They did the work, it's their right to do whatever they want with it.
  Have you heard of Wine, an independent implementation of the Win32 API on top of Unix? Have you perhaps heard of Winsock, the Windows TCP/IP library that is used for all network access on Windows, the one which is a straight copy of the original API created by the BSD developers?
A few huge differences by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 01:57 · Score: 5, Informative

1. The don't use the Java brand and don't call it Java.
2. Its not based on Sun/Oracle sources and relies on a clean room implementation
3. Google didn't sign a licensing contract then violate it like MS did.
1. Re:A few huge differences by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 02:54 · Score: 0
  
  1. The don't use the Java brand and don't call it Java.
  2. Its not based on Sun/Oracle sources and relies on a clean room implementation
  3. Google didn't sign a licensing contract then violate it like MS did.
  All of that is irrelevant if the API is copyrightable - something that apparently is not settled law, hence this conflict.
2. Re:A few huge differences by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 03:52 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Posting AC as I have invested mod points in this discussion.
  I have scanned the posts, and the biggest difference between MS's and Google's situation has not been mentioned as yet. It is that MS used the Java rip-off in products that it sold, while Google gives the stuff away gratis. This matters:
  The courts need to be shown that damage has been done, and the primary test of whether significant damage has been done has always been a defensable estimate of lost income. There is no trial-tested mechanism for estimating the damage done to your business when someone down the block is giving away what you are attempting to sell. Sun/Oracle could use published MS sales data to show that MS had cut into their market and their suit against MS could go forward on that basis. But there are no sales data for Google products. In fact there is no accepted way to estimate how many persons might be using any Google product. Maybe everyone is. But maybe they are only using it because it doesn't cost them anything. Maybe if Google went away there would be no increase in the Oracle/Sun sales because everyone who was using the Google stuff would rather go without than pay anything at all.
  The applicable Lemonade Stand argument: If you set up a lemonade booth and charge $.05 a glass, and your Mom provides all the ingredients, then you are in business for profit. If your twin sister Alice sets up a competing stand on the other side of the street, then you could argue that it isn't fair: Alice is stealing your business and the money she is making should really be yours. You might not get Mommy to agree to your argument, but at least you have something to argue about. But if your little sister Betty sets up a stand down the street where she is selling her crayon drawings for $.05 per page, and giving away glasses of lemonade to anyone who stops to look at them, then that might fry your buns, but there is no basis for you arguing against her activities. What she is doing is having the same effect on your business as a rain shower would. You need to accept that the business environment has changed, and change your business model accordingly. Maybe you could get out your ukileli and start busking, and give away lemonade to anyone who stops to listen to your songs. Or move your stand far away from both your sisters, like maybe around the corner. The business environment might be better for you there.
  Google, and other FOSS based businesses, are changing the business environment. Businesses that have intelligent management are adapting: IBM, Redhat, and others are becoming part of the change and making good profit while doing so. Businesses that are too close to being braindead to adapt to the changes are going to dry up and blow away. The software business model of 1980 is no longer viable in the 21st century.
3. Re:A few huge differences by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 10:44 · Score: 0
  
  1. The don't use the Java brand and don't call it Java.
  2. Its not based on Sun/Oracle sources and relies on a clean room implementation
  3. Google didn't sign a licensing contract then violate it like MS did.
  All of that is irrelevant if the API is copyrightable - something that apparently is not settled law, hence this conflict.
  
  The point is that if the Java API is copyrightable, then all APIs are copyrightable and copyrighted.
  For example whoever currently owns the UNIX OS IP could conceivably shutdown LINUX because Linus copied the API. Not that he copied the files, but he copied the form and structure of the API.
  It has been pretty settled law that the form and structure of an API is not copyrightable, because it's basically, well, just form and structure. It's like saying the form and structure of the index of a math book is copyrightable.
Not as trivial as it sounds by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 02:04 · Score: 1

IIRC Sun Microsystems got into similar legal battles with Microsoft over the latter's implementation of a Java Virtual Machine. Sun claimed it licensed use of the *Sun* JDK and JVM to Microsoft, not the rights to re-implement the language with its own engine.
Of course, Microsoft eventually responded by creating a competing set of virtual machine-based languages that were sufficiently different from Java as to not violate copyright.
Now, that might have been a licensing issue, but the copyright issue is interesting too. There were the famous battles of spreadsheet "Look and Feel" where Borland Quattro Pro emulated the Lotus 1-2-3 menu hierarchy; Lotus successfully sued for damages.
You can copyright maps and manuals by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 02:23 · Score: 0

You can copyright APIs.
1. Re:You can copyright maps and manuals by ThePhilips · 2014-10-09 02:43 · Score: 1
  
  Copyrighting APIs makes no techinical sense, while copyrighting maps and manuals does.
  The only thing remotely plausible is patenting APIs. And even that I'm not sure technically feasible.
  I've witnessed probably man/centuries of wasted efforts due to crappy APIs - and I've seen single-person projects springing to life and seamingly leveling mountains when the available APIs were good.
  Some APIs fit the puzzle of any applications - some force projects as a whole back to the drawing board.
  
  --
  All hope abandon ye who enter here.
2. Re:You can copyright maps and manuals by raymorris · 2014-10-09 03:47 · Score: 1
  
  > I've witnessed probably man/centuries of wasted efforts due to crappy APIs -
  > and I've seen single-person projects springing to life and seamingly leveling mountains when the available APIs were good.
  > Some APIs fit the puzzle of any applications - some force projects as a whole back to the drawing board.
  So you're saying there are good APIs and bad APIs, that there is an art to writing a concise, balanced, beautiful API?
  I want Google to win this one, but copyright _is_ supposed to cover stuff you write where there's an art to writing it well.
3. Re:You can copyright maps and manuals by 4wdloop · 2014-10-09 04:26 · Score: 2
  
  There is definitely a value (art) in good API. However...then there should be a similar balance as in patent intentions (no, not US implementation of patents) ie keep balance of reward/incentive to innovate with general society benefit.
  If API was found to be copyright-able everybody would stay away of everybody's else APIs unless given to public domain. This at least would make clear statement of what to do - do not use copyrighted APIs. However this defeats the purpose of APIs: cooperation.
  I at least hope they would not apply it retroactively - this would be mayhem.
  
  --
  4wdloop
4. Re:You can copyright maps and manuals by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 04:50 · Score: 0
  
  No, copyrights exist as a pragmatic tool for making it more economically feasible for authors to contribute to the public domain. If the cost of making something is so low that a >100 year monopoly isn't needed for its production, then either the copyright term must be diminished or the product should not be covered by copyright.
5. Re:You can copyright maps and manuals by reebmmm · 2014-10-09 04:57 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Patent/IP Attorney chiming in.
  
  You can copyright maps and manuals
  Sure. You're very specific expression of both. You don't get to copyright the "facts" in either case. Everyone is free to copy the factual aspects of both maps and manuals. The distinction is an important one. And while not addressing maps and manuals directly in their petition, Google takes on the concept: you can write a book about art, but you don't get to stop other people from doing that art.
  You can draw (and potentially get a copyright for) an outline of the world, but you can't stop other people from doing the same.
  Google's argument about the API isn't all that much different: you can copyright an implementation of the API, but you don't get a copyright for the "facts" of the API: function names, arrangement, etc. The argument is that copyright, by statute, expressly does not extend to "extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work." (17 USC 102(b)). This is not a trivial argument. It's also pretty important because if Oracle/Federal Circuit are correct, then you can have de facto patent protection for a century without any of the procedural protections such as examination.
6. Re:You can copyright maps and manuals by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 05:30 · Score: 0
  
  No you can't.
  EU (as decided by their equivalent to the SCotUS) has determined that APIs cannot be copyrighted.
  http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/05/eus-top-court-apis-cant-be-copyrighted-would-monopolise-ideas/
  APIs are like facts - facts are not copyright-able, period.
7. Re:You can copyright maps and manuals by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 05:35 · Score: 0
  
  You can't copyright a single telephone number, but you can copyright a telephone book. Same for dictionary. So a single method cannot be copyrighted but that does not mean the whole JAVA language and API cannot be copyrighted. What constitutes a creative compilation of small ideas into a single coherent copyrightable work can be decided by court. In this case, Google won first round, Oracle second and now Google is asking for 3rd round. As of now, Google hasn't even granted the 3rd round yet.
8. Re:You can copyright maps and manuals by jdschulteis · 2014-10-09 06:32 · Score: 2
  
  You can't copyright a single telephone number, but you can copyright a telephone book.
  Actually, you cannot copyright a telephone book.
9. Re:You can copyright maps and manuals by suutar · 2014-10-09 06:33 · Score: 1
  
  I have no problem with the idea of an API being copyrighted. But please note, "we needed to do it for interoperability" has been found to be a fair use justification for reverse engineering undocumented APIs; if you actually publish it, you're doing it to encourage interoperability and writing to the API is fair use.
10. Re:You can copyright maps and manuals by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 08:02 · Score: 0
  
  IANAL but there seem to be a value in a specific "arrangments" that API represent (an "art" or "skill"), some are better then others. And also there is an "author" that taks an effort to define an API. In fact much more value in arrangement than in using specific names for functions or parameters.
  So if I create sound api "play(soundname)" I do not clame copyright to general ability to play sounds but the the way one may request to do so. Somebody else can call it "sound(tunename)" but this is the same API with changed names.
  Do I get copyright for this sentence, asuming it I have soley authored it: "computers can play beatufill sounds" ? Yes not copyright for "sounds" and "computers" and "sounds plsyed by computers" itself?
11. Re:You can copyright maps and manuals by ASimPerson · 2014-10-09 08:56 · Score: 1
  
  Didn't Oracle prevail on appeal by claiming that the structure, sequence, and organization of the Java API was copyrighted, not the fact that there's a function called this, a function called that, etc.?
  
  --
  In 3010, the potatoes triumphed
12. Re:You can copyright maps and manuals by JoelKatz · 2014-10-09 10:07 · Score: 1
  
  This is precisely what copyright does *NOT* cover. There must be millions of equally good ways of doing the same thing, and you may protect the non-functional aspects of the one way that you creatively chose. Here, the name is purely functional -- play(soundname) is the only way to get the API to play a sound -- it is the one way to achieve a particular functional result, so it cannot be protected by copyright.
  You can copyright a sentence you solely authored if it has sufficient creative expression. But you cannot enforce that copyright against someone who uses that sentence because it is the only practical way to achieve a particular functional result. If the sentence uses an API, then complying with the API is the only way to achieve the functional result desired. The purpose of APIs is to standardize the way to achieve particular results.
13. Re:You can copyright maps and manuals by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 10:28 · Score: 0
  
  This is more like the idea of Webster's trying to copyright how people spell words based on their publication of a dictionary. If people don't spell words mostly the same, people won't be able to read each other's writing.
14. Re:You can copyright maps and manuals by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-10 13:58 · Score: 0
  
  you can write a book about art, but you don't get to stop other people from doing that art
  This didn't stop the lawyers working for TSR from attempting to do just that when they sued GDW (Central District Of Illinois, No. 92-1230, TSR v GDW and E. Gary Gygax).
  Of course, they might not have been interested in winning the suit in court, but simply forcing the other side to concede for lack of funds.
  Certainly unethical practice of law in either case, but since the US legal profession has a long history of choosing to do little or nothing about the ethics problems riddling the US legal system (a problem that has been discussed many times on Slashdot in other discussions, and thus need not be repeated here), any claims it's members makes regarding the law are necessarily suspect.
  Putting that in other terms, the US legal profession, as a whole (as a class or group in society, as a sociologist or anthropologist might put it), is in a position of ethical conflict of interest with respect to the nature, scope, and form of the legal system. That necessarily includes definitions of what something is, or is not, such as whether or not something is a copyright violation and/or subject to copyright.
  The correct thing to do, from a legal ethics perspective, is probably to throw copyright law out entirely and start over, placing the legal profession in a strictly advisory role.
17 USC 102(b) by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 02:36 · Score: 4, Interesting

Can someone explain how it's not a slam-dunk argument that APIs fall under the scope limitation of 17 USC 102(b)? Isn't that a key underpinning of decades of case law on very nearly this exact subject (Computer Associates v. Altai, Lotus v. Borland, Sega v. Accolade, Sony v. Connectix)?

(b) In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.
Let us consult the Constitution by Tokolosh · 2014-10-09 02:37 · Score: 2, Insightful

"The Congress shall have power ... TO PROMOTE THE PROGRESS of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries..." [Caps mine]
This fails the promoting progress requirement.

--
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
1. Re:Let us consult the Constitution by ThePhilips · 2014-10-09 02:50 · Score: 1
  
  THE PROGRESS of science and useful arts
  
  This fails the promoting progress requirement.
  Not, if you measure "the progress" by the revenue/profit.
  
  --
  All hope abandon ye who enter here.
2. Re:Let us consult the Constitution by __aaclcg7560 · 2014-10-09 03:23 · Score: 0
  
  The Congress shall have power ... TO PROMOTE THE PROGRESS of science and useful arts
  With this Congress, it should read "TO PROMOTE THE REGRESSION of science and useful arts based on fear, ignorance and stupidity."
3. Re:Let us consult the Constitution by 4wdloop · 2014-10-09 04:34 · Score: 1
  
  I am not a English Major but the meaning is conveyed as :
  TO PROMOTE THE PROGRESS .....by securing ....the exclusive right
  This is intention of creating copyright and patents in the first place, I am afraid, and not to allow free copying and reuse.
  
  --
  4wdloop
4. Re:Let us consult the Constitution by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 05:37 · Score: 0
  
  I am not a English Major but the meaning is conveyed as :
  TO PROMOTE THE PROGRESS .....by securing ....the exclusive right
  This is intention of creating copyright and patents in the first place, I am afraid, and not to allow free copying and reuse.
  To promote progress, yes?
  The point of exclusivity is that it is supposed to encourage research and development which would not otherwise occur. Oracle is not researching or developing anything, they are rent-seeking which is a regressive behavior. It therefore fails the progress part of the requirement for expanding copyright and patent reach.
17 USC 102(b) by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 03:57 · Score: 0

see http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=OracleGoogle
API == interface: electrical, mechanical, biochem by 4wdloop · 2014-10-09 04:15 · Score: 2

The concept of APIs can also be extended to any "interfacing" whether software, electrical, mechanical or perhaps even biochemical (proteins etc?) or "human communication protocols".
Where do we go from here?

--
4wdloop
If Oracle wins, Bell Labs owns the world. by emil · 2014-10-09 04:22 · Score: 5, Interesting

The full source code of the UNIX v6 kernel, as published in the Lions commentary, bore prominent copyright notices from AT&T Bell Labs.
If the system call and C library API interface is thus still owned by Bell Labs, then that covers Oracle Linux, the POSIX standard, commercial UNIX, as well as all the phones (including QNX), routers, UNIX/Linux/BSD servers/workstations, and likely much more.
Oracle had better pray that they lose.
1. Re:If Oracle wins, Bell Labs owns the world. by binarylarry · 2014-10-09 06:46 · Score: 2
  
  Also, doesn't AMD's reimplementation of the 386 microcode count as prior art? Intel sued them and AMD won IIRC.
  They created a new, compatible microcode for the processor using clean room reverse engineering.
  
  --
  Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
2. Re:If Oracle wins, Bell Labs owns the world. by binarylarry · 2014-10-09 07:02 · Score: 1
  
  By prior art I mean existing case law.
  
  --
  Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
3. Re:If Oracle wins, Bell Labs owns the world. by Forever+Wondering · 2014-10-09 09:55 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  The AT&T copyrights were the genesis of POSIX. Nobody could create a workalike Un*x, so POSIX was originally a "clean room" reimplementation of the Un*x API's [libc, programs, et. al.]. POSIX now serves as a standard, but that wasn't its original purpose.
  Because the POSIX methodology has been around for 30 years, it provides some precedent/defense for Google [estoppel].
  If Oracle's argument prevails, this kills all Linux, *BSD [OSX] workalike OSes. Also, because ISO copyrights the C/C++ specs [to charge a fee to have a copy], this means that nobody could program in C/C++ without a license from ISO.
  The Oracle/Google decision by the appellate court is tantamount to conferring patent protections for a copyright. That is, because Louis L'Amour copyrighted his western novels, nobody else can pen a western.
  
  --
  Like a good neighbor, fsck is there ...
4. Re:If Oracle wins, Bell Labs owns the world. by Kagetsuki · 2014-10-09 22:39 · Score: 1
  
  The Oracle/Google decision by the appellate court is tantamount to conferring patent protections for a copyright. That is, because Louis L'Amour copyrighted his western novels, nobody else can pen a western.
  That is a fantastically easy to understand analogy! Somebody needs to mod you up.
Re:17 USC 102(b) by mark-t · 2014-10-09 04:27 · Score: 2

* idea - (Abstract) Patents deal with ideas, concrete API code does not.
Nice subtle moving of the goalposts there...
An API is not the same thing as API code. API code is an implementation of an API, and not the API itself, even if you describe the API by using a programming language notation as if you were writing code.
Code is obviously copyrightable, regardless if it forms part of an API or not... But the API itself is only the interface, and does not actually contain any code, and such an interface is ultimately only an idea... there's nothing concrete about it like there is with code.
Of course, a particular expression of any idea may be entirely copyrightable, but even that doesn't give one a license to exclude other people from expressing the same idea on their own... especially when the idea is narrow enough in scope that there aren't many unique ways to express it in the first place.

--
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Re:API == interface: electrical, mechanical, bioch by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 04:35 · Score: 0

Some asshole copyrights the english language and now no word can be added to the lexicon without their written permission (which good luck adding it to the language because the word doesn't exist)
then some asshole tries to copyright genetic sequences, and expects anybody doing gene engineering to pay them for the right for the sequence.
Feel sorry for the lawyers on both sides by gatfirls · 2014-10-09 04:43 · Score: 2

They will have to use sock puppets and crayons to argue this case with these judges.
Lotus v. Borland by tepples · 2014-10-09 04:45 · Score: 2

There were the famous battles of spreadsheet "Look and Feel" where Borland Quattro Pro emulated the Lotus 1-2-3 menu hierarchy; Lotus successfully sued for damages.
How successful was Lotus actually? The Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ruled in favor of Borland, and the Supremes agreed.
Predictions are hard by CauseBy · 2014-10-09 04:48 · Score: 5, Funny

It's hard to decide how the SCUSA would rule in this case because it is two big corporations fighting. If it were a corporation versus a human being then it would be an easy decision for the SCUSA, but I don't think five of those nine Justices have any compass for how to rule in cases between two corporations.
It'll be really confusing for them. Imagine the conversation:
Roberts: "Hey, Thomas, how are you going to vote?"
Thomas: "I don't know, Johnny. I read the briefs and shat my pants when I saw that both litigants were corporations."
Scalia: "Me too. I even asked both sides if maybe they were not a corporation, to simplify things, but it seems like they really are both corporations."
Roberts: "Yeah I'm flummoxed. There's just no way to decide."
Alito: "Maybe one of them is a small corporation? Then we could just round them down to 'human' and rule against them."
Roberts: "No such luck. These are both huge corporations."
Kennedy: "Hey, guys, I'm thinking maybe we could decide the case based on legal principles."
Roberts: ...
Scalia: ...
Alito: "I don't get it. Legal principles? You mean like, we should check the documents of incorporation to see whether they are real corporations?"
Kennedy: "No, I mean like, we should decide the case based on what the law says, and based on previous legal decisions in American courts."
Roberts: ...
Scalia: ...
Alito: "I still don't get it. What does the law have to do with it?"
Thomas: "Yeah, seriously Kennedy, we let you screw up the DOMA decision and we're not going to let you do it again. Is this 'API' thing religious? Maybe we could rule in favor of religion, if the other corporation is atheist."
Alito: "No, apparently it's some kind of computery thing. I don't really know, I was doing a Sudoku during arguments."
Roberts: "Look, maybe we should just defer to the appellate court."
Scalia: "But the appellate court ruled against a corporation!"
Roberts: "Yeah but they also ruled for a corporation."
Roberts, Thomas, Scalia, Alito: heads physically explode.
Kennedy: "Ah, sheesh, they got blood on my robe."
Ginsberg: "Anthony, come over here, maybe you can help Sonya and I write a decision."
Kennedy: "I guess so, but your lap isn't as comfortable as Scalia's. Will you scratch me behind my ear?"
Ginsberg: "I'll scratch you behind your ear but you have to promise to stop mentioning legal principles in front of the conservatives."
1. Re:Predictions are hard by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 05:49 · Score: 0
  
  maybe you can help Sonya and I write a decision.
  That should be "Sonya and me", because you (hopefully) wouldn't say "maybe you can help I write a decision."
SCOTUS defers to Congress on "promote" by tepples · 2014-10-09 04:51 · Score: 1

I seem to remember the opinion of the Supreme Court in Eldred v. Ashcroft (the Copyright Term Extension Act case) stating in effect that "to promote the progress" means "to attempt to promote the progress". It defers to Congress on what constitutes promoting.
1. Re:SCOTUS defers to Congress on "promote" by Tokolosh · 2014-10-09 05:11 · Score: 1
  
  Nice write-up here http://www.heritage.org/consti... demonstrates that both the Courts and Congress have capitulated.
  
  --
  Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
unless cooperation invited by raymorris · 2014-10-09 04:53 · Score: 1

Again, I'm expressing arguments against the outcome I prefer.
If, as you argue, the purpose for creating your API is to facilitate cooperation, would you not license it to allow cooperation?
1. Re:unless cooperation invited by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 07:41 · Score: 0
  
  I did not mean I like the outcome either, merly that, sustaining your point about value in APIs, there still may be/should be other higher reasons to decide against copyrights on APIs.
  If APIs were copyright-able, then in order to facilitate their adoption copyright holders would have to put them in public domain or in some other way make them freely avaliable (whatever the legal term may be).
  If you equal API "design" to a music/lirics and API implementation (both "declaration code" and "code that implements it") to a music performance that creates interesting problem for copyright law as both are subject to copyright. However I argue that API "design" (composition) in itself should not be restricted/licenced/copyright in order to facilitate greater good. One may argue that this should be left to decide for the "design" author.
  All in all it is not clear choice for me - as software eng I like apis to stay "free" but from legal/logic point of view there may be something to debate.
Re:17 USC 102(b) by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 05:49 · Score: 0

(Same AC, answering my own question)
I could be misinterpreting, but it seems that the judge's reasoning is that 102(b) represents a clarification of the scope of 102(a) rather than a separate test for copyright eligibility, and therefore demonstrating originality and creativity under 102(a) alone is sufficient to establish copyright eligibility.
This is why we can't have nice things by drinkypoo · 2014-10-09 06:37 · Score: 1

Trollmod for a perfectly cromulent explanation.

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The term is stupidly long by raymorris · 2014-10-09 07:52 · Score: 1

> If the cost of making something is so low that a >100 year monopoly isn't needed for its production, then either the copyright term must be diminished or the product should not be covered by copyright.
The term of copyright is ridiculously long. I would think that anyone who thinks copyright is a good idea should support reducing the length considerably. Having it so long encourages and provides good arguments for those who wish to greatly restrict copyright. A term of around seven years would accomplish the stated purpose, without unnecessary drawbacks.
Microsofts Android Tax .. by lippydude · 2014-10-09 09:23 · Score: 2

How will this impact Microsofts Android Tax? I mean doesn't Microsoft have patented intellectual property rights to Android?

M-Cam casts doubts on Microsoft's Android patent portfolio
1. Re:Microsofts Android Tax .. by jonwil · 2014-10-09 10:30 · Score: 2
  
  It wont have any impact on that since this case is about copyrights and not patents.
2. Re:Microsofts Android Tax .. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-09 19:23 · Score: 0
  
  It wont have any impact on that since this case is about copyrights and not patents.
  Yes. As example, one of the patents Microsoft have here and claim Android phones are infringing on is the combination of GPS and GSM triangulation for increased location accuracy (according to the Chinese government document that outed these patents).
if an API is a list of facts.... by HydroPhonic · 2014-10-09 09:42 · Score: 1

if an API is a list of facts.... Maybe Oracle seeks copyright protection, as a phone book would, of their compilation of facts.
1. Re:if an API is a list of facts.... by JoelKatz · 2014-10-09 10:03 · Score: 1
  
  I assume you're intending this as a joke. Feist v. Rural Telephone Service established that one cannot copyright a complete list of facts.