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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.
It's more of an Aliens vs. Predator situation. Whoever wins, we lose.
I've never heard of a stupider idea. How about I think about all the functionality that could be implemented by someone somewhere, then write these extremely easy one line expectations. I'll make a huge number of them as well such that all the arguments you'd expect to pass in for that type of functionality are covered.
Now that I've claimed copyright, the ability of a random person to use program a computer to do something useful has been taken away from them. That, and I barely had to do any actual work. The functionality hasn't even been implemented. Isn't the US legal system great?
Oracle is never on the side of right. This is so true that if they do something that you thought was right, you should think again and try to decide whether they are being deceitful, or whether you were wrong to thing it was the right thing to do.
Google is sometimes a good guy. You can't use their actions as any guide to what proper behavior is. So they are less trustworthy than Oracle.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Whichever one happens to be on the side of sanity.
In this case, Google was arguing that an API shouldn't be copyrightable. For anyone who understands what an API is, this makes total sense.
If I want to make an after-market alternator for a Honda car, I can do so by creating my own device that has the right size pulley, screw threads, electrical output, and so on. This absolutely is "fair use." In the same way, the API is the spec for the functionality behind it. I should be able to make an after-market part that meets those specs, without infringing on any copyrights.
Because Google was on the right side of the issue, I root for Google in this case. But if the roles were reversed, I would root for Oracle just as quickly.
Is Oracle using SCO's law firm?
Yes, actually, Same law firm.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Google doesn't need our sympathy--Oracle needs our antipathy. The people behind Oracles side of the case are sociopaths attempting to do something that will set a precedent that is extremely negative for technological progress in American society. Once set, it could extend beyond the country as part of our continual series of copyright treaties, making Oracle responsible for doing serious damage to human society as a whole. They're monsters who should be locked up.
Nobody seriously should care whether Google has to pay a million or even a billion dollars to some company, but they should care about the dangerous precedent Oracle was trying to set.
It's not about which one of them cares about us, but rather being pragmatic. There are many situations in which the enemy of my enemy is my friend. If Oracle is successful in its claims that APIs can be locked down, there's a world of hurt coming in the US, as any organization or individual that has replicated the function call list of any library (including kernels) could be viewed as having infringed on the original creator of that API. By that I mean just the call list and/or symbol tables, not any actual code.
In this case, Google is fighting an important fight that we should all hope it is successful in. Tomorrow it could be fighting a fight we disagree with.
To simply mindlessly support a company is the worst kind of fanboism, as mindlessly attacking a company's every move is just pointless contrarianism. Even Microsoft fights some fights I agree with, even if I think Redmond is run by some of the most loathsome individuals in the tech history.
Oracle, sadly, is a company whose positions almost always seem to fly in the face of reason, ethics and fair play, but it's at least theoretically possible that some day they may be on the right side of a battle. I dunno, maybe they don't like North Carolina gender bathroom laws or something.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.