Slashdot Mirror
Judge Blasts Oracle's Attempt To Overturn Pro-Google Jury Verdict (arstechnica.com)
Joe Mullin, reporting for Ars Technica: Google successfully made its case to a jury last month that its use of Java APIs in Android was "fair use," and the verdict rejected Oracle's claim that the mobile system infringed its copyrights. After Google argued its case, though, Oracle filed a motion arguing that the judge should decide as a matter of law that fair use didn't cover it. In the wake of the jury's pro-Google verdict, Oracle's motion was its last hope of a trial victory. It didn't happen; US District Judge William Alsup shot down the motion on Wednesday. The same order also denied Google's motion making similar arguments, filed at the close of trial but before the jury's verdict. Alsup's stinging order [PDF], which rejects Oracle's argument [PDF] on every front, hardly comes as a surprise. But the document provides the first insights as to what Oracle might bring up in an appeal proceeding, which the company has said it will pursue. In the order, Alsup defends how he ran the trial. The evidence and instructions presented to the jury were a mix of mandates from the appeals court, which overruled Alsup on the key issue of API copyrightability, and modifications urged by both sides' lawyers.
I forgot, is it Google or Oracle? Which multi-billion dollar corporation needs our sympathy, cheers, and support today?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
While I agree with your premise - read the judgement. It's actually pretty impressive. The judge clearly took the time to learn some programming and some java. It's a very well thought out, and clearly well informed judgement. For a judge to dive this deeply into the issue gives me some hope for some of the other idiocy of the legal framework around software.
.
We're rooting for technological progress, so that means that everyone has to root for APIs to not be granted exclusive monopolies by the government. That means you should be on Google's side and it doesn't matter if either side happens to be rich.
What Oracle is doing seems dangerous to me. The last they they should want are judges (or anyone else) thinking about this. Asking judges to reconsider Fair Use is a very bad idea, because the more someone understands the issue, the more likely that they'll realize: "you're right, Fair Use doesn't make much sense."
It was an error to call it Fair Use, because it was a grevious error to even rule that an API could possibly be covered by copyright at all. The very nature of an API is that two entities speak it, so government misusing The People's power to grant a monopoly on a form of communication is absurd. Government does not need to grant monopolies in order to incentivize people to establish means of communicating with one another. That is a form of "the progress of the arts and useful sciences" which already incentivizes itself.
The more people think about this, the more likely this error will be spotted by someone able to do something about it. (All three branches of the government could get involved in this to varying degrees; Oracle is lucky that only one branch is finding them so contemptuous so far.) Oracle won this case by advancing the cause of evil, even if they didn't get their money.
Oracle: if you truly value injustice, unfairess, theft, technological retardation and stagnation, and want to help remove incentives for developers to create things, then you need to STFU immediately, because you're risking the loss of all your progress. Be happy with the damage that you have already done. It won't last, but you have have hurt everyone (Google almost doesn't matter in the larger context) for now, so you should be grateful.