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A California Jury Finds Copyright Infringement In an Interface (deepchip.com)
whoever57 writes: A California jury in one of the cases between Synopsys and Atoptech found copyright infringement in Atoptech's use of the "Primetime commands". These companies compete in the field of EDA ("Electronic Design Automation") software: software that is used by semiconductor companies to design ICs. The Primetime commands are merely an interface. Atoptech has their own implementation of the functionality that these commands [provide]. This can be seen as similar to the Oracle vs. Google lawsuit, in which an appeals court has found that providing a similar interface (via header files) can constitute copyright infringement. Naturally, there will be appeals in this case.
If you beleive anything you might have learned in computer science surely it is that spending time to get the API right is the most important thing. populating the implementation of the sub sections defined by the API is the work you give to the C-students. You let the A-students come define the interface. The API is the most valuable part of the whole
The API is no doubt important. Your post reads as possibly sarcasm, but either way, the implementation is at least as important. Screw that up, and your API means nothing. Also, your API will reflect what your code actually does. Even the best engineer is likely not going to see deeply enough to build a perfect API the first time. Actual coding is very likely to cause revisions to the API that better reflect how things should be, once the problem can be better understood.
All that being said, none of this addresses the original question. Should APIs be copyrightable? Sure, they arguably are a creative work, but if you allow a copyright on that aspect of a creative work, such that it cannot be duplicated you cause monopoly situations which are not in favour of the world at large. Think of the Java thing, by not allowing someone to write a compatible API, it means that everything Java would go back to one corporation that can just rake in the bucks, because writing a completely new API breaks everyone else's work and requires a almost total rewrite.
Basically allowing API's to be copies is, imnsho, a reasonable fair use exception. Interoperability is more important than another multinationals profit.
there was an amicus brief signed by nearly a hundred software libre supporters: i read it, and they missed some really, really important very dangerous examples of how copyrighting interfaces destroys both proprietary and libre software *and hardware* business models.
* assembly instructions. assembly instructions *are* the "interface" between the hardware and the software. if assembly instructions themselves become copyrighted - a restricted form of of free speech if you will - then we are hopelessly screwed. software distributors - any software - presently being sold (or given away as libre binaries) WORLDWIDE - would need all of a sudden to contact the *PROCESSOR* designers to gain their permission in order to continue distribution of what was previously recognised as legal and covered under free speech laws.
* the GPL, LGPL, AGPL, and all other software licenses whether they be proprietary or libre, would need to be updated in order to explicitly grant permission to use the APIs that were previously recognised as "free speech" [code, under precedent, is recognised as being "speech"]. in cases where changing the license is *NOT POSSIBLE* such as with the GPLv2 on the linux kernel, the problem becomes extremely serious. for those people not familiar with the problem of the GPLv2 license on the linux kernel: it's GPLv2 not GPLv2+, and, given that there are several thousand individual copyright holders - each and every one of whom needs to be contacted and EXPLICITLY asked if they agree to the license change, you start to understand how flat-out impossible that is. especially given that some of those people will have died, or changed name, or will have been working for companies at the time and so on. so all of a sudden, given that it would not be possible to update the license, and given that the license would no longer cover APIs within the copyrighted work of the linux kernel, the burden is on the END-USER to request permission of the copyright-holders - all of them - for the requisite permission... and thus we are completely fucked because the exact same problem occurs, in contacting and tracking down thousands of people. remember: if you can't *get* permission, you must cease and desist from use of the software, otherwise you are acting in a criminal capacity.
* RPC mechanisms. (remote procedure calls). all and any RPC interfaces - by virtue of *being* interfaces - would become copyrighted. this would entirely defeat the extremely protracted and lengthy ground-breaking work by which the samba team members managed - over many years - to persuade the EU to compel microsoft to release their IDL files for interoperability purposes. if it now becomes necessary for each and every end-user as well as developer to contact microsoft and ask their permission to use their suddenly-copyrighted interfaces.... what do you think is going to happen?
* Silicon Chips - even just *buying* a chip would be problematic as its "interfaces" would be copyrighted. we have enough problems as it is with NDAs and being unable to get hold of datasheets: what do you think would happen if the sellers of ICs suddenly started enforcing license agreements and copyright enforcement agreements because the pins of the chip were considered to be "interfaces" and thus "controlled"? supply via distributors - especially smaller ones - would be sent into absolute chaos.
the most amazing thing is that i was actually contacted by someone who claimed that there were *supporters* in the software libre community of copyrighting of interfaces, because it would somehow strengthen the effects of the GPL. as such copyrighting is in effect an extremely dangerous restriction of "freedom of speech" (because it effectively terminates your free unrestricted right to "talk" in the "language" of the "interface"), any such perceived "benefits" are utterly smashed by the total chaos that the entire world - with its now heavy-dependence on software and hardware - would be thrown into.
i just... i'm completely blown away that there are intelligent people out there who do not understand how utterly insane the concept of API copyrighting really is.
Copyright lengths should be reduced to 14 years with a one-time, paid 14 year renewal. If something isn't making you enough money after 14 years to warrant paying for renewal, you let it go. And after 28 years, you should be able to milk everything out of it that you could so you release it to the public domain and make something new.
While it's not a bad idea, I've got a counter-proposal. Copyright is really a bundle of different rights, including the right to make copies, the right to distribute a work, and the right to make derivative works. Making copies of an original work or distributing it seems to be significantly less defensible than making a derivative work. For example, even though it's been more than 14 years, making dozens of copies of the movie Die Hard and/or distributing them to others is directly using another's creative work, without adding anything. However, making a derivative work, such as a Die Hard musical or a Roshomon-style "Die Hard from Gruber's perspective" movie, requires creativity and makes something new that didn't exist before.
Similarly, copying and distributing Steamboat Willie doesn't add anything, but making a new Steamboat Willie adventure does. Or copying and distributing an album, compared to remixing it or sampling it for use in an otherwise new work.
Accordingly, I'd submit that copyright term should be split, with a very short exclusive term for creation of derivative works: if a book author wants to remake it as a screenplay, or a band wants to remix their album into a dance version, let them have, say, five years. If they don't, let others take a turn with their creativity. But keep the longer term for exact copying and distribution of the original, since infringing that doesn't add anything new to the art.
On the penalties front, the penalties were set in the days when casual copyright infringement was hardly ever prosecuted. People made and shared mix tapes recorded off the radio, but weren't sued for it. People who made multiple copies of CDs and sold them on the street corners, though, would find themselves in court facing huge fines. I'd argue that we should keep "commercial copyright infringement" fines where they are and cap "non-commercial/home infringement" at 10x the cost of buying the item infringed on. So if you uploaded 1,000 songs, you would face a fine of $0.99*10*1,000, or $9,900. High enough to act as a deterrent but not so high as to bankrupt you immediately. (Right now, uploading 1,000 songs would mean a fine of $750,000 to $150,000,000.)
And here, I disagree with your calculation because of those different rights to copy and distribute noted above. Making a mix tape creates individual copies, and so a fine that's related to the cost of buying those copies makes sense. But distributing copies to others or sharing a song online is distribution, and the distribution rights cost much, much more than a single copy. It's not like Apple pays Taylor Swift $0.99 for a copy of her latest song that they then resell to millions on the iTunes Store - they're paying many tens of thousands, with royalties and likely a fixed minimum amount. Similarly, when Michael Jackson bought a bunch of the Beatles' catalog back in the 1980s, he wasn't just going to the record store and buying individual albums - he was buying the distribution rights, at somewhere around $50k per song.
So, if you only ever download a song and never upload it - leaching - then you'd have an argument that you were just making a single copy and those fines should be proportional to purchasing a copy. But if you upload the song to others, you're distributing it, and the fine should be proportional to a distribution right - somewhere in that $750 to $30k* range.
*I specify $30k as opposed to the "up to $150k for willful infringement" in the statute, because I think the RIAA and the courts have been using the wrong definition for "willful". It should be interpreted similarly to how it a