Android Is 'Fair Use' As Google Beats Oracle In $9 Billion Lawsuit (arstechnica.com)

infernalC writes: Ars Technica is reporting that the verdict is in, and that the jury decided that Google's duplication of several Java interfaces is fair use. Ars Technica writes that Google's Android OS does not infringe upon Oracle-owned copyrights because its re-implementation of 37 Java APIs is protected by "fair use." The jury unanimously answered "yes" in response to whether or not Google's use of Java APIs was a "fair use" under copyright law. The trial is now over, since Google won. "Google's win somewhat softens the blow to software developers who previously thought programming language APIs were free to use," Ars Technica writes. "It's still the case that APIs can be protected by copyright under the law of at least one appeals court. However, the first high-profile attempt to control APIs with copyright law has now been stymied by a "fair use" defense." The amount Oracle may have asked for in damages could have been as much as $9 billion.

Comments

Thank Jesus...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sometimes, juries do the right/sane thing.

Now PLEASE, supreme court, et al, don't let this warm feeling go away by overturning this.

Re:Thank Jesus...

[jcr]

So do the Google moguls. Politically, it's a wash.

-jcr

Re:Thank Jesus...

[jordanjay29]

Well, one court circuit has created the precedent that APIs are copyrightable. That's not to say that same judgement applies in any other by default, you could still press the argument in another court (albeit with an uphill battle) that APIs can't be copyrighted. Two contradictory decisions can occur simultaneously in different circuits, it's how many of the social issues SCOTUS has dealt with lately have come to them. And that's probably where it would lead, to the Supreme Court, who would rule once and for all.

Re:Thank Jesus...

[jcr]

Nah. The fact that they both pay up means that Hillary would stay out of it.

-jcr

Re:Thank Jesus...

[exomondo]

Well, one court circuit has created the precedent that APIs are copyrightable. That's not to say that same judgement applies in any other by default, you could still press the argument in another court (albeit with an uphill battle) that APIs can't be copyrighted.

Yes but as the GP pointed out, you can only even attempt to overturn that precedent if you have significant resources to fund a legal team to try to do it.

Two contradictory decisions can occur simultaneously in different circuits, it's how many of the social issues SCOTUS has dealt with lately have come to them. And that's probably where it would lead, to the Supreme Court, who would rule once and for all.

Well in this case one court ruled that APIs cannot be copyrighted, that judgement was overturned and the case was returned to that court with the ruling that APIs can indeed be copyrighted. The case proceeded on that basis and the argument was then "fair use". As it stands, the precedent in both circuits is that APIs can be copyrighted.

Re:Thank Jesus...

[catchblue22]

Larry Ellison is a selfish hypocritical right wing fuck who was willing to wreck the entire software industry for his own personal gain.

Re: Thank Jesus...

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

I suspect Donald understands real property very, very well. Intellectual property? Maybe insofar as licensing his name is concerned. He doesn't know an API from an IPA.

He understands real property exceedingly well, supporting the Kelo decision, which ruled taking a house and giving the land to another private person who will pay more taxes on it, to a government insatiable for cash, is a "public use".

Even many on the left, who supported it initially for that reason, no longer do once it was pointed out this massively targets poor people, leaving them worse off.

Re:Thank Jesus...

[Maritz]

If The Donald wins, we are safe.

lol. Hard to imagine that being the case in any context.

Oracle Company Motto

[Anonymous Coward]

I think Oracle needs to change to a new company motto, like "Don't Be Evil!".

Re:Oracle Company Motto

[Anonymous Coward]

But then he would no longer be:

One
Raving
Asshole
Called
Larry
Ellison

Re:Glad they won....

[asipper]

i though sco lost because it was shown they didn't own unix not that api's weren't copyrightable

The trial is now over,

[phantomfive]

The trial is now over,

Oracle has threatened to appeal (because of the way the instructions to the jury were phrased), and in fact has filed a motion for JOML, which would overturn the jury's decision (basically they asked the judge to evaluate the evidence and determine whether a non-descript 'reasonable' jury would find it fair use).

So expect this to last for the rest of the year at least.

Re:The trial is now over,

[phantomfive]

Knowing Alsup, he won't buy that one.

I don't think he will either. You are right, there's basically zero reason for him to overturn the jury now; even if he thought Oracle were correct, might as well let the appeal court do the dirty work.

I'm sure they will appeal, but it seems like a slim chance at this point.

Maybe. I don't know which court will hear the appeal, but if it goes to the same federal appeals court that the original question went to, then I think they will rule that it's not fair use. They almost did to begin with. In their earlier decision they wrote, "Oracle’s position is not without force. On many of these points, Google does not debate Oracle’s characterization of its conduct, nor could it on the record evidence."

The appellate court sent the case back for findings of fact: essentially to let Google present their evidence. Now the question is whether the appellate court will buy the new evidence or not.

It's also worth noting that this case does not cover all APIs, it only covers this particular use of this particular API (this was true in the original trial as well, including the federal court's ruling that said this API is copyrightable).

Re:The trial is now over,

[phantomfive]

The exact quote from Oracle lawyers is, "No reasonable jury could find that Google’s verbatim and entirely commercial use of the declaring code and SSO to compete against the Java platform was a fair use."

Re:The trial is now over,

[dgatwood]

... and in fact has filed a motion for JOML ...

You've been using Java too much. I think you mean JMOL.

:-D

Re:The trial is now over,

[wierd_w]

That's a no true scottsman, straight up!

It begs the question, that if the jury finds against Oracle, the jury is defacto unreasonable!

Why even HAVE a jury?!

No, the assertion is a logical fallacy, and a classic one at that. Oracle needs to define, explicitly, why it feels the instructions to the jury that has already decided the fact of the case that has now concluded were in any way improper.

That it cannot find one, and has to resort to "But, the verdict is unreasonable! I demand the other verdict!" as its justification, indicates that oracle does not have grounds for appeal.

Logical fallacies of international renown like this do not belong in the decision matrix of the legal system. Period.

Re:The trial is now over,

[phantomfive]

That's a no true scottsman, straight up!

It sounds like it to you, but in court there are legal definitions for things like "reasonable jury" and Oracle will need to prove that their case fits that definition.

Re:The trial is now over,

[wierd_w]

According to Nolo, it means exactly what I think it means.

http://www.nolo.com/dictionary...

In the context of a "reasonable jury", it would relate to a jury that is ordinary, rational, or appropriate.

The no true scottsman appellation stands: Oracle is straight up saying that a jury that fails to see things its way is not an ordinary, rational, or appropriate jury.

The assertion that there is a specific meaning to the phrase "reasonable jury" outside of this more generic use of the legal definition of the word "reasonable" does not seem to bear fruit. I have searched many different online legal dictionaries for the term, and come up empty. If there is such a specific use of the art, I would be glad to have it defined for me.

As best I can interpret, Oracle is stating that because Google's use is clearly commercial in nature, that the use cannot be a fair use, and takes this as a presupposition for its subsequent intent in the statement-- that no reasonable jury (as in, one that is aware of what constitutes fair use, and uses reason) would conclude that Google's use falls under that category.

It is a no true scottsman, because of this presupposition-- It begs the question.

To counter this line of argument that Oracle is employing, let us instead consider what an API is, and what role it plays in communication.

An API is a specification. Essentially, it is a codified set of definitions for terms, and methods of employment that are permitted within a system of communication. It is roughly analogous to a lexicon for a given written or verbal language.
EG-- a dictionary.

With this in mind, we can point out the fallacy of Oracle's statement, by replacing a few words.

"No reasonable jury could find that Googleâ(TM)s verbatim and entirely commercial use of the dictionary and stated grammar to compete against our written works was a fair use."

Basically, Oracle is presupposing that it owns a language, so any use of that language's lexicon and grammar is theirs to control-- and assert that they get this power through copyright.

Copyright provides restrictions on reproduction and use of fixed media (be it written words, moving pictures, photographs, or audio recordings--)-- it does not cover subject matter. EG, if I paint a nice still-life of some daisies, I don't get to claim ownership over the concept of painting still lifes of daisies. Only over the reproduction of my specific image of daisies.

The court demonstrated that the API documents created by Oracle can be copyrighted-- They can control the dissemination and distribution of those documents, and only those documents. They do not hold any authority over the concepts expressed in the documents. EG-- they don't own the rights to all pictures of daisies-- even if they invented daisies.

One could claim that the VM Google uses (whatever it is called these days) is a derivative work of the Java virtual machine. This is a tricky area legally-- Copyright is not the appropriate vehicle for this kind of intellectual property. (Patents are the appropriate vehicle.) The API documents describe the language and behavior used by the java virtual machine. Google has created a different virtual machine that uses the same language.

At best, the case Oracle can make here is that google copied, verbatim, their dictionary instead of writing their own. The problem, as demonstrated in court, is that there can only be one definition, and the definition given is absolutely precise, as required for a computer language. There are no other ways to rephrase or rewrite the dictionary to make it into a new literary work referencing the same language.

Again, the copyright is over the documents, not the language.

This is why the jury found the use to be a non-infringing, fair use.

An outcome that Oracle insists cannot happen, because "reasons", and that any jury that finds otherwise is not reasonable-- Nevermind that the way they reached the verdict was through application of reason and fairness.

No True Scottsman confirmed.

Re:Slashdot needs to eat crow

[i_ate_god]

well, don't know anything about the jury, but the judge I reckon has really earned respect from communities like this because to better understand the situation, he got quite familiar with Java itself: http://radar.oreilly.com/2012/...

Re:Glad they won....

[arbiter1]

Well if Google lost this case, it would open up pandora's box of lawsuits from here on. It would allow companies to sue pretty much every app dev that makes an app if it uses an api which likely 99.9% do.

Re:Too Bad For Oracle...

[bill_mcgonigle]

This is bad for Oracle. They don't need the $9B but they need a club that big to force Google into cross-licensing deals on their distributed database patents. Because Oracle doesn't scale without them.

Otherwise they didn't need to spend $5.6B on Sun.

Re:Slashdot needs to eat crow

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

It would appear that the judge and jury are owed an apology.

Are you sure it wasn't a case of the lawyer for Google translating the case into a metaphor that the jury could understand, like putting too much air into a balloon?

Re:APIs are still copyrighted

[K. S. Kyosuke]

All existing companies could easily lose the war since the AI superbrain of the 2070s that will make everything else obsolete might be put on the market by a company founded by someone who's just been born.

Rubbish!

[grub]

I bet Google made a secret deal with the judge to expunge his entire search history.

Re:Rubbish!

[swb]

His search history is now Serious Legal Stuff, baseball and some cat videos.

11,500 lines of code

[mhenley]

Oracle's Lawyer stated: "They copied 11,500 lines of code," Oracle attorney Peter Bicks said during closing arguments. "It's undisputed. They took the code, they copied it, and put it right into Android." My understanding is that google used the api's but wrote their own implementation, what does he base that accusation on?

Re:11,500 lines of code

[ledow]

For "code", read "lines from header files to ensure that their strlen() function - or whatever - took the same parameters in the same order as our one, when they were trying to make an independent, but compatible, reimplementation".

It's like Intel saying "They copied our circuit diagram, hundreds of pins on a layout and what they do" when someone's making, say, a chip compatible with an x86 motherboard. Nobody's suggesting that the chip they made wasn't developed entirely independently, they're saying they "own" the fact that pin 1 is 5v, pin 2 is GND, pin 3 is DATA1, etc.

Re:11,500 lines of code

[bmk67]

It's not code (as in executable code), they are interface classes - declarations if you will - which implement no functionality at all but only specify how to interact with a subsystem.

Oracle is engaging in hyperbole.

It's still a nice victory

[rsilvergun]

The Judge generally weighs the jury's ruling pretty strongly. I honestly thought the jury would rule against google. Juries tend to be very conservative and they tend to side first with property rights. Oracle had some fairly compelling arguments too. Ars has the slides they showed the jury and their slick as all hell get out. The fact that it was ruled you could copyright declarations kinda sucked too. Oracle now has an uphill fight on their hands.

11,500 lines of code

[Anonymous Coward]

I copied 1 line of subjects. It's undisputed. I took your subject, I copied it, and put it right into my post.

Stop using Java

[Alomex]

After this, if I still had my company, I wouldn't touch Java with a ten foot pole. I'd be at the whim of whatever Oracle executive failed to meet last quarter figures. Find a true unencumbered language and use that instead.

Re:Stop using Java

[headkase]

So, you're saying: "keep taking it up the ass because I can't imagine changing my tool chain?"

There are plenty of alternatives to Java, .Net is a valid one despite your claim, and others like Python or C/C++ are equally valid. The trick with C/C++ is to use an abstraction layer between your code and the operating system. Like GUI toolkits and such. Let the GUI toolkit implement the different back-ends, your code calls it the same on all platforms.

Re:Stop using Java

[Anonymous Coward]

Um... C?

Also, Java is not cross platform. To run Java you need to first install a JVM written in, you guessed it: C.

Your professors were wrong. Very wrong.

Re:Stop using Java

[Alomex]

C++, maybe you've heard of it?

Heck nowadays even C# is freer than Java and that is saying something.

Re:Stop using Java

[IamTheRealMike]

The only comparable platform to Java is .NET and if your goal is to avoid money hungry patent/copyright-abusing companies, switching from Java (which has been open source for years) to .NET (partly open source for, what, one year?) is not really a great trade.

And no, dynamically typed languages are not replacements, nor are C/C++. To be a Java competitor you need to match its feature set, which is very hard given how large it is. And you need to be both garbage collected/statically typed. Only Go is even in the right general area, but Go is where Java was around 1998, so that's not really compelling.

The rather boring reality is that Java is safe unless you're an unusually rich corporation who is making something kinda-but-not-really Java. That does not describe most users.

Re:Stop using Java

[Alomex]

Pay attention, the implementation is free, not the language itself. Java has no ECMA specification, hence the lawsuit.

Re:Stop using Java

[ooloorie]

C++, D, Python, Julia, Go, to name just a few.

But C# is also a choice; unlike Java, it has an open standard. And it's also more "cross platform" than Java.

Not out of the woods

[flink]

It's great Google won and all, but fair use doesn't really protect the average developer. Fair use is an affirmative defense. In order to assert fair use, you have to get sued, refuse to settle, and then prove that your use is a fair use in a court of law. That will almost always get prohibitively expensive very quickly as this case has shown.

The real solutions is to make APIs not covered by copyright at all, like a directory listing or mathematical formula. I think Oracle should be able to copyright the implementation of Java, and obviously they have the right to restrict the use of the Java trademark, but the APIs should just be public domain.

The fair use argument is clear

[infernalC]

There are four factors to consider when determining if the copying is "fair use":

1. Purpose and character of the use, including whether the use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes.

Google's use of the Java interfaces is to educate other pieces of code about what the implementation does. Interfaces are essentially documentative in nature, not creative...

2. Nature of the copyrighted work

Interfaces are not very creative. All they really do is document the input and output of an implementation. The implementation is where the creativity of the work is expressed.

3. Amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole

I bet the interfaces are less than 3% of the code base. If not, we have an over-architected language on our hands here..

4. Effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work

Oracle didn't lose a dime over this until they started paying lawyers to sue Google. If anything, Google's use of the Java interfaces made Java more valuable, because it brought more developers into the Java fold.

This comment shamelessly copies content from http://www.copyright.gov/fair-... ... a work of the United States Government not subject to copyright protection.

It wouldn't surprise me if .NET phases out JAVA

[Timmy D Programmer]

Microsoft's move to open source,and set free some very powerful programming tools, carries well into this story. Developers choose Java because it was believed to be free/open But as far as Oracle is concerned, it's not. I really do think .net core can fill this role now.

IBM PC BIOS

[Todd Knarr]

I'd love to see IBM take a swing at this one, seeing as the original decision that allowed non-IBM PC-compatible machines to be created turned on the question of whether creating a BIOS that exposed the exact same interface as IBM's BIOS infringed on IBM's copyright if all other code could be proven to be entirely original. Under this decision the answer would be "Yes.", and IBM would be owed damages for every single PC created using a non-IBM BIOS that had any trace of the legacy BIOS API in it (at a minimum every BIOS that wasn't completely UEFI-only).

It might also be entertaining to analyze the effects of this ruling on Oracle's use of GPL- and LGPL-licensed glibc and kernel header files in their products that run on Linux. Neither license quite directly addresses the question of copying copyrighted API declarations into object files and executables. They address linking of various sorts, and copying into source code, but this particular aspect's deemed outside the scope of the license and thus not addressed.

Re: Glad they won....

[UnknowingFool]

Why is it that any mention of copyright invokes the spectre of SCO. SCO has no case for a number of reasons. One of which is the courts have ruled that SCO has a lack of standing to sue since they didn't own the copyrights. Secondly, many of their claims were dismissed because they didn't follow court orders to specify exactly what their claims were. Lastly, the merits of their remaining claims were laughable at best.

Re:How can it be fair use?

[elwinc]

Google brought in Sun's CEO Jonathan Schwartz to tell the jury that Sun had already blessed Google's use of Java. Perhaps the jury believed Mr Schwartz's testimony.

Re:Glad they won....

[DrXym]

Google didn't reimplement the API. Apache did with Apache Harmony. Or rather, IBM did most of it and contributed the code to Apache.

And the reason Apache Harmony existed was as a credible "plan B" if Sun / Oracle started being dicks about open sourcing Java or excluding Apache from technology compatibility testing. When the OpenJDK became a thing, IBM switched to that, and Harmony basically fell by the wayside. But the implemented APIs found its way into Android.

And it wasn't the only implementation of the java.* APIs either. GNU Classpath was another one. And Kaffe had an implementation (albeit of an older Java). And in commercial-land there is Skelmir's CEE-J which was another impl that's still going. I had experience using CEE-J for set top box development and it was a delight especially since the "official" alternative was J2ME which sucked balls. But of course none of these efforts would have been worth suing for billions.

Google's "crime" was implementing an API (something which happens customarily all the time in computing) and having enough money to be worth suing. Fortunately they didn't take kindly to the shakedown and fought it out. Whatever you think of Google, this outcome is beneficial for everyone.

Re: Glad they won....

[dwillden]

Why? Because despite the very poor case that SCO had, the case drug on for years, refusing to go away. Despite loss after loss after loss the battle drug on.

That and that alone is why copyright cases invariably raise the spectre of SCO. The case that just would not die. Rumor had it that a Blade IV movie would have had Blade going after the ultimate Undead Creature of all time: SCO.

Re:The lawsuit was a PR stunt gone well for Oracle

[TangoMargarine]

You obviously haven't heard from anybody who's worked for Oracle. Yes, he really is that greedy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

"The lawnmower has no empathy. The lawnmower can't have empathy."

And then there's the part where basically the entire team of Sun technical people quit en masse after the acquisition.

Re:The lawsuit was a PR stunt gone well for Oracle

[catchblue22]

Oracle has to defend its business and it would be stupid for them not to go after the ginormous megacorp Google if they didn't see a chance of making a PR splash with the public and the shareholders.

I suggest you watch this extremely insightful BBC documentary called "F**k You Buddy". It largely explains how the above type of viewpoint gained ascendance in certain circles. The short answer: much of our current economic ideology is based on the game theory work of paranoid schizophrenic John Nash. The implication of Nash's work can be described in the "Prisoner's Dilemma", where cooperation is negative, and the only way to reliably win is to betray your neighbour. Nash's ideology puts forward a hypothetical version of humans where we are all out to betray one another for our own selfish gain. However, I would put forward the fact that Nash's mental illness may have coloured his worldview. His schizophrenia caused him so see paranoid conspiracies everywhere he looked. The worldview implied in his game theory ideology reflects this picture of humans as selfish backstabbing automatons. I would say that although there is some reality in this view, humans also have undeniable altruistic characteristics that contradict his cartoonish view.