Computer Scientists Ask Supreme Court To Rule APIs Can't Be Copyrighted

An anonymous reader writes: The EFF, representing a coalition of computer scientists, filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court yesterday hoping for a ruling that APIs can't be copyrighted. The names backing the brief include Bjarne Stroustrup, Ken Thompson, Guido van Rossum, and many other luminaries. "The brief explains that the freedom to re-implement and extend existing APIs has been the key to competition and progress in both hardware and software development. It made possible the emergence and success of many robust industries we now take for granted—for example, mainframes, PCs, and workstations/servers—by ensuring that competitors could challenge established players and advance the state of the art. The litigation began several years ago when Oracle sued Google over its use of Java APIs in the Android OS. Google wrote its own implementation of the Java APIs, but, in order to allow developers to write their own programs for Android, Google's implementation used the same names, organization, and functionality as the Java APIs."

Comments

Re:system or method of operation

[OrangeTide]

You're confusing interfaces of physical devices that isn't copied by copyright (but perhaps patents) with an expressible form of information that is copyright protected. (like a written work, computer software, song, and others)

If any API can be placed under copyright, it's not because it's an interface, it's because it's software. You can already copyright software, not a big deal there.

That said, I am strongly opposed to expanding the scope of copyright on computer software because I believe protecting APIs would be harmful to the industry that I work in. Potentially costing silicon valley billions in litigation, lost revenue and possibly having a chilling effect on software start-ups in the US. Effectively hobbling American technology industry to the point that innovation must occur outside of the US and be imported. An trade imbalance of innovations and IP could be very harmful to the long term growth of the US, not unlike the current imbalance in manufacturing.