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The case Google v. Oracle America, previously named Oracle America, Inc. v. Google, Inc., is being heard by the US Supreme Court. At the center of the case is whether programmers require permission to use an application programming interface (API). The outcome will determine the extent to which APIs can or should be copyrighted. If it turns out that copyright can be used to lock competitors out of using any given API, then there are severe repercussions for software development, as all programs these days rely heavily on pre-existing libararies which are then accessed via APIs.
Google: The case for open innovation:
The Court will review whether copyright should extend to nuts-and-bolts software interfaces, and if so, whether it can be fair to use those interfaces to create new technologies, as the jury in this case found. Software interfaces are the access points that allow computer programs to connect to each other, like plugs and sockets. Imagine a world in which every time you went to a different building, you needed a different plug to fit the proprietary socket, and no one was allowed to create adapters.
This case will make a difference for everyone who touches technology—from startups to major tech platforms, software developers to product manufacturers, businesses to consumers—and we're pleased that many leading representatives of those groups will be filing their own briefs to support our position.
At bottom in the case is the issue of whether copyright law bars the commonplace practice of software reimplementation, "[t]he process of writing new software to perform certain functions of a legacy product." (Google brief p.7) Here, Google had repurposed certain functional elements of Java SE (less that 0.5% of Java SE overall, according to Google's brief, p. 8) in its Android operating system for the sake of interoperability—enabling Java apps to work with Android and Android apps to work with Java, and enabling Java developers to build apps for both platforms without needing to learn the new conventions and structure of an entirely new platform.
Devclass: Google says nature of APIs under threat as Oracle case heads to US Supreme Court:
The case – ten years in making – centres on Oracle's claims that its Java patents and copyrights were infringed by Google when the search giant created its Android mobile operating system. An initial ruling in Google's favour was overturned on appeal, and the case is finally due to land in the Supreme Court this year. Google filed its opening brief for the justices this week.
When was the last time, outside of school, when you yourself have written a program entirely from scratch and not used even a single set of application programming interfaces? Yeah. Thought so.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 14 2020, @05:24PM (22 children)
Time to write letters to the Court. This is a potential nuke to open-source and IT compatibility.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday January 14 2020, @06:46PM (21 children)
Prediction:
Democratic appointments will rule that copyright does NOT apply to APIs
Republican appointments will rule that it does
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Tuesday January 14 2020, @06:56PM (3 children)
Stupidity and Greed are not the exclusive "intellectual" property of only the Republican (or Democratic) party.
Greed "trumps" stupidity. You can bet that Democrats will support copyrightable APIs if the
rightleft palms get greased.Corruption is a universal in politics.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 5, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday January 14 2020, @07:26PM (2 children)
I'm not claiming otherwise. IP stupidity is depressingly bipartisan.
However, being able to say the internet is not a telecommunications service with a straight face is a uniquely Republican trait, for example.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Tuesday January 14 2020, @07:56PM
I can't argue. That is an astonishingly brazen example of corruption.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday January 15 2020, @02:18PM
And it still doesn't cost them votes when the dems only need a few strategically placed allies [gq.com] to do the same thing. Where was the democrat congress when they had the power to actually pass legislation instead of waiting for a revocable executive order?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 14 2020, @07:37PM (4 children)
You should consider things such as the TPP when making comments like this. It was little more than a giant multinational corporate handout with extensive strengthening of intellectual property laws and an undermining of domestic courts ability to side issues in lieu of corporate tribunals. And it was spearheaded by Obama. Both parties tend to be pretty bent over to corporate interests. And so yes in this case I do expect the democratic appointees to side with Google/Microsoft/etc. But I also certainly expect the republican appointees to do so as well.
The friend of the court filings [scotusblog.com] have been absolutely lopsided. Does anybody support Oracle, besides Oracle? This is going to be a 9-0. Though I have to say it's one hell of a sad state of affairs when we can predict and debate, probably quite accurately, the outcome of what should be a complex, esoteric, and deeply nuanced case intermixing between constitutional and copyright law - based on little more than the political affinities of our "judges." The entire reason the supreme court has live term was to enable people to step outside partisan nonsense. Didn't get rid of the partisanship, just gave us 90 year old judges who cannot be removed. Something the next great nation will undoubtedly learn from.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 14 2020, @09:05PM (1 child)
Actually, one would hope that a case would be decided upon its legal standing and merits and not depend upon the number of amicus briefs filed.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday January 14 2020, @09:23PM
Different dead presidents' faces on those Amicus Briefs apply differing weights towards swaying the outcome in a particular direction.
But other Amicus Briefs have fields such as "Date", "Pay to the order of", "Amount", etc.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 14 2020, @09:19PM
So what are the political affinities of our judges? You're the second [soylentnews.org] poster to complain about this without providing even the slightest details on the political affinities that supposedly are so predictable and so relevant.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by linuxrocks123 on Tuesday January 14 2020, @10:17PM
The Department of Justice supports Oracle. They argued that the Federal Circuit correctly decided the case, that certiorari should not be granted, and that the case was a poor vehicle for examining any broader issues beyond the case itself.
They supported Oracle under Obama as well, iirc, so I doubt this is due to Trump shenanigans. My guess is that they just assigned the matter to someone who doesn't know what he's doing.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 14 2020, @08:21PM (10 children)
IIRC Hillary Clinton supported ACTA (I think it was) and then changed her mind while running for elections of course. Because every politician changes their views during elections (but changes them right back afterwards).
and let's not forget Bill Clinton passed the DMCA.
So don't tell me Republicans are more in favor of IP than Democrats. If anything I'm more afraid of the Democrats favoring such silly IP rulings.
(Score: 4, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday January 14 2020, @09:31PM
I'm not, all that crap passes with bipartisan majorities.
However, we're talking about the Judiciary here, not the Congress.
And in my observation the Republican appointees always end up on the wrong side when technology is involved.
Consider whether the government can snoop through your cellphone records without a warrant, for example. Roberts luckily flipped on that one but the rest of the conservatives wrote a NINETY TWO page dissent. [usatoday.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Tuesday January 14 2020, @09:33PM (7 children)
I remember.
The DMCA was a horrifying travesty of justice and due process. No statutory penalty for false DMCA claims, nor process to deal with it.
Now DMCA is just accepted as normal. It doesn't even offend people.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 4, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday January 14 2020, @09:37PM (6 children)
And in the Senate Every Republican AND every Democrat voted for it. [govtrack.us]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday January 14 2020, @09:49PM (4 children)
There must have been some industry organization(s)
bribinglobbying both sides.The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 15 2020, @04:16AM (3 children)
They do that long before it comes down to a single issue. The problem with our democracy as opposed to e.g. Finland, or even what it used to be is that we're huge. You don't get elected by going door to door, giving stump speeches, and the like. You get elected by spending massive amounts of money. Seriously, money is the strongest predictor in election success in the US. And so who gives that money? Corporations and other special interests. Do you know what congressmen spend the most time doing once elected? Yip, fundraising for the next election.
And the thing that really sucks is that there is absolutely no way to fix this problem. Even if you made some rule that congressmen could not accept donations then it'd simply turn into the exact same thing done through proxies. Even if you banned third party political advertising, it'd end up with the same thing done by 'incentivizing' high visibility individuals to 'voluntarily' support them.
(Score: 2) by dry on Wednesday January 15 2020, @09:01PM (2 children)
One big problem is that you froze the size of the House of Representatives a century ago while your population has grown. This leads to those Representatives representing a huge chunk of the population so going door to door doesn't work and a small enough group that they're easy to bribe. It also leads to more unbalance in individual States representation.
Canada, with 1/10th the population has 338 members in the House of Commons, so for for same representation you would need over 3000 Representatives.
The States could fix this by passing Article the First but likely won't as too many States like having an extra say in how the country is run. The only thing worse then tyranny of the majority is tyranny of the minority.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 16 2020, @01:31AM (1 child)
The U.S. population has more than tripled [wolframalpha.com] from 1913 to today. Back then, there were 211,000 people per representative, on average, and there is over 710,000 today. Canada's is 108,000 and that would be almost 2860 representatives, not counting apportionment by state. Personally, I'd implement the Wyoming Rule, at a minimum, to lower the average and insure more parity in the future. Then we can talk about changing the population per representative.
(Score: 2) by dry on Thursday January 16 2020, @02:11AM
Yes, the Wyoming Rule would be a start, just to balance things a bit better. Federal systems make it hard to balance representation with the smaller political units having more say it seems. Here PEI has about 36000 per riding compared to my Province at 110,000. The Territories likewise have about 35k-40k even with their size (Nunavut is about 9x the size of Texas).
(Score: 2) by TheReaperD on Wednesday January 15 2020, @02:27AM
Hey, Disney and Sony paid good money for those votes!
Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 14 2020, @10:09PM
These trade deals are huge with very many parts. Unless a politician stakes out a position on one of them, it is not easy to disentangle if it passes with bipartisan support. A proper compromise bill will have positions that various people or groups dislike. People vote for it because it is deemed to be the best that can be done. So don't jump to the conclusion that Obama wanted this or that, etc.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 14 2020, @10:52PM
Democrats will say it's "Cultural Appropriation" to use an API.