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SCOTUS Denies Google's Request To Appeal Oracle API Case
New submitter Neil_Brown writes: The Supreme Court of the United States has today denied Google's request to appeal against the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's ruling (PDF) that the structure, sequence and organization of 37 of Oracle's APIs (application program interfaces) was capable of copyright protection. The case is not over, as Google can now seek to argue that, despite the APIs being restricted by copyright, its handling amounts to "fair use". Professor Pamela Samuelson has previously commented (PDF) on the implications if SCOTUS declined to hear the appeal. The Verge reports: "A district court ruled in Google's favor back in 2012, calling the API "a utilitarian and functional set of symbols" that couldn't be tied up by copyrights. Last May, a federal appeals court overturned that ruling by calling the Java API copyrightable. However, the court said that Google could still have lawfully used the APIs under fair use, sending the case back to a lower court to argue the issue. That's where Google will have to go next, now that the Supreme Court has declined to hear the issue over copyright itself.
So ... basically every modern implementation of C illegally copied AT&T's or K&R's shit?
Mono has illegally copied Microsoft's shit?
The API is a contract, which you publish in order to allow people to use it. But you specifically do publish it.
Java was released by Sun without licensing, just saying you needed to be compatible with the core and not screw things up -- and now retroactively Oracle can claim copyright on it? There sure as hell were other implementations of Java out there which nobody was complaining about.
That pretty much sounds like bullshit. Interoperability is part of fair use. Have we so thoroughly eroded this concept that the copyright lawyers have won?
I'm pretty sure at the time Google was copying those interfaces, not a damned person EVER suggested this required licensing.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Call me a pedant, but
> copied shit exactly
Android Inc didn't copy/paste shit; that would be exactly. They built their own VM that runs the same bytecode compile-able from the same source that's freely available all over this mess of the internet. See OpenJDK.
That would be sufficient to make the APIs stop working. Perhaps you should think again about what information is required and copyrightable.
I think that this decision may mean that Google will need to do something like alphabetize the API. (Customized organization can be copyrighted, but alphabetical order can't.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
So, what exactly does this do to the Open Source movement?
It was my understanding that Java had been open sourced and that made what Android did allowable, and long as the open source agreement lived on is Androids code
Now we see Oracle applying copyright law to Java...
So... did Oracle remove Java from open source?
Are the parts of Java that Oracle claims copyright over not open source?
Has Open Source just been ignored (and invalidated) by the federal court system?
Wherever You Go, There You Are
That would be sufficient to make the APIs stop working. Perhaps you should think again about what information is required and copyrightable.
I think that this decision may mean that Google will need to do something like alphabetize the API. (Customized organization can be copyrighted, but alphabetical order can't.)
Nah, I'm pretty sure Google will win the case against Oracle. There are at least two more defenses they can fall back on.
First, exactly what the summary mentioned: Fair Use. Fair Use is complicated and there are multiple factors to consider but courts generally come down strongest on the economic questions, and there the question is whether Google's action devalued Oracle's property. Speculatively, suppose that Google had had to create its own set of APIs. They could absolutely have been modeled on the Java APIs, but would need to use different names, etc. Google could well have taken the opportunity to clean up a lot of crufty corners of the Java APIs. This would have been a significant undertaking for Google, but wouldn't have been prohibitive by any means. Not doing it saved Google money, but the more interesting question is what was the impact on Java?
I think Google has a really compelling argument that using the Java APIs in what has become the world's dominant personal computing platform's primary development toolset has increased the value of the Java APIs. Although Java was originally built with embedded and mobile devices in mind, without Android it would likely be relegated to being a big systems application language only.
There are probably other Fair Use angles to attack, but that's the one that jumps out at me.
The second defense, and one that seems absolutely deadly to Oracle's claims, is promissory estoppel. Google very much had Sun's approval and cooperation when they decided to use the Java APIs for Android, so it's really nasty of Oracle to try to take that back now, and courts don't buy it.
It would have been better if Google could have established the general principle that APIs are not copyrightable. They shouldn't be, and establishing that would be good for the whole software industry. Barring that, the Fair Use defense could establish a precedent that is almost as good. The estoppel argument solves Google's problem but doesn't do anything to make the industry better.
I work for Google. Posting anonymously for obvious reasons. We have a version of the Android framework built using C++ and Go. Since the ART VM is language agnostic the transition should be fairly smooth. Once we get all of the initial pieces of the puzzle in place we'll be transitioning to it. It won't happen in M, but will happen in N.
It was my understanding that Java had been open sourced and that made what Android did allowable, and long as the open source agreement lived on is Androids code
The open source java, OpenJDK, is licensed basically under the GPLv2 (with the runtime classpath exception). If Google took that code and used it, they would have to put their code under the GPL. They didn't. They took the code (actually, just the API definitions) and put it under a different license. It's like taking code licensed under BSD and putting it under the GPL - unless you are the owner of the code it's a license violation and you can no longer use the code.
This lawsuite would have had no leg to stand on if Google took code from OpenJDK and used it, but they didn't. As far as I can tell, OpenJDK didn't enter into the picture at all.
Now, I still think copyrights applying to API is a terrible decision, but I just wanted to clarify the situation about OpenJDK vs Android "Open Source".