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from the chickens-coming-home-to-roost dept.
Google has appealed its case with Oracle to the Supreme Court of the United States over a dispute about whether a java API may be copyrighted.
The ARS Technica Story: Google asks Supreme Court to overrule disastrous ruling on API copyrights.
The consensus among the comments on ARS seem to be that this will result in a substantial amount of litigation. I'm forced to ask whether this future litigation should have happened already, and that this paradigm shift is just a matter of catching up to the effects of a previous bad ruling Lotus v. Borland from the early 1990s.
I get that it is going to cause a lot of code refactoring. But won't that also create a lot of new products? The other thing to consider is that communications protocols are essentially API specifications. Historically intellectual property protection for protocols is very weak. Some (myself at least) would attribute the effectiveness of the EEE business tactic to the inability to defend protocol compatibility within the legal framework provided by the USPTO and Copyright Office.
Which is to say that an Oracle victory may expand the scope of FOSS licensing, giving FOSS developers more say over how their products are used. This would reduce barrier to entry in new communications product markets that are based on FOSS, and give more power to startups.
Yes it is going to be expensive for established players if Oracle wins. Most people seem to agree with that. That is the price of operating on a bad premise. Does it matter whether responsibility for the premise resides with a judge or a CEO? Aren't there also some upsides if Oracle wins? What are the trade offs?
Of course the whole thing could be a put on.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Wednesday January 30 2019, @12:45PM (3 children)
An API is "a set of clearly defined methods of communication". In many, perhaps in most cases, the backend of the API is implemented. The implementation may well be a commercial offering. For example: if you use our web service, you have to pay us. The key question in this case is: If someone else implements a new backend that follows the API, does the originator have any legal claim?
For copyright, the key question becomes: Can you claim copyright on an API? Is an API a creative work, or just a mechanical listing?
Unfortunately, I can see arguments on both sides. On the side of the entire IT world, the argument is simply that no one has ever asserted copyright on an API. Hence, if precedent carries weight (which it does, under US law), APIs are not copyrighted. On the legalistic side: When you first create an API, you are not just mechanically listing methods and parameters - because these do not yet exist, and are yet to be defined. The API is, in fact, something that you create along with your initial implementation. If you software is copyrightable, the API is just an aspect of this. I don't like that legalistic conclusion, but I can see how nontechnical judges may follow it.
The real solution, of course, is to fix copyright law.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 3, Informative) by ilsa on Wednesday January 30 2019, @06:04PM (1 child)
While there are potential arguments on both sides, Oracle's side opens a ginormous can of worms that is liable to disrupt ALL software development.
Software developers code from the shoulders of giants. There is virtually nothing today that hasn't been in some way derived from past work. That includes virtually all APIs.
Everyone will have to completely and needlessly reinvent the wheel for every single god damn thing, just to avoid potential lawsuits.
It's the equivalent of saying that Ford has copywrited the gas pedal, so now no other car manufacturer is allowed to use one and every car has a completely different way to drive it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 30 2019, @10:30PM
The fun part is that if Oracle's argument prevails, they're going to immediately be sued for their use of Structured Query Language, as that would just as obviously be a copyright infringement under their own arguments here.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Wednesday January 30 2019, @07:46PM
It's important to remember that copyright is a hack. It is a limited license for a monopoly that is provided in the hopes that:
1. This encourages creators to create more stuff because they can exploit the monopoly to make money.
2. Creating more stuff is good for society.
If we apply this to APIs, it is clear that we do not want them to be copyrightable. The last thing we need is more APIs/standards, so providing an incentive for people to create more and more APIs (and license them for profit) is horribly bad for society.
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