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The Obama administration has asked the United States Supreme Court to decline Google's appeal against a 2014 federal appeals court ruling finding copyright infringement of Oracle's Java code:
The case involves how much copyright protection should extend to the Java programing language. Oracle won a federal appeals court ruling last year that allows it to copyright parts of Java, whilst Google argues it should be free to use Java without paying a licencing fee. Google, which used Java to design its Android smartphone operating system, appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court then asked the Obama administration in January for its opinion on whether it should take the case because the federal government has a strong interest. The Federal Trade Commission, for instance, must ensure companies do not break antitrust laws when claiming software copyright protection against each other.
According to Google, an Oracle victory would obstruct "an enormous amount of innovation" because software developers would not be able to freely build on each others' work. But Oracle says effective copyright protection is the key to software innovation.
In the court filing on Tuesday, U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli said Google's argument that the code is not entitled to copyright protection lacks merit and did not need to be reviewed by the Supreme Court. Verrilli added that Google had raised important concerns about the effect that enforcement of Oracle's copyright could have on software development, but said those issues could be addressed via further proceedings on Google's separate "fair use" defence in San Francisco federal court.
Google v. Oracle, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 14-410
[Editor's Comment: Original Submission]
(Score: 3, Touché) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday May 28 2015, @07:53PM
It is commonly asserted by the misinformed that one cannot copyright header files. I assert that is not the case.
void strcpy( char *dst, char *src ); // Copy the nul-terminated sequence of chars from src buffer to dst
It's plainly apparent that the above is an expressive work which is worthy of copyright, especially so when it is in a header file full of similar expressive works.
Why?
"dst", "src" and the explanatory comment are expressive.
A reasonable clean-room clone that would not infringe might be:
void strcpy( char *a, char *b );
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday May 29 2015, @12:00AM
How does that matter at all to the situation? Comments don't go in the compiled code, and are we seriously going to argue that people should be able to copyright/patent the names of the variables they're using? The fuck difference does that make to the end user?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday May 29 2015, @03:13AM
my point is that a header file is not an interface; it is a creative work that, among other things, describes an interface.
The parts _other_ than the interface can be copyrighted.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by lentilla on Friday May 29 2015, @01:47AM
I don't think you committed copyright infringement. You generated a derivative work by transformation.
It's usually char *strcpy(char *dest, const char *src);
:-)