Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google • Hacker News Board

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#481

Post by hcknwscommenter » Tue, Mar 27, 2018, 10:14 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #346

hcknwscommenter wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replying to your comment below. I am not missing your point. I am merely pointing out that your point is incorrect as a matter of law. Copyright does not cover re-implementation. Copyright only covers copying. Your statement that IBM could sue company using a clean-room developed re-implementation of IMB's BIOS if IBM owned a copyright to their BIOS is incorrect as a matter of law.

> Copyright does not cover re-implementation. Copyright only covers copying. Coypright covers derivative works of copyright-protected works, as well as literal copies. If APIs are copyrightable, there is a very good case to be made that a reimplementation of an API implementation (not an API that serves a similar function, but an actual reimplementation) is a derivative work of the API itself.

An interesting argument. However, the Oracle Google case is not about derivative works. Google admitted to copying.

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#482

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Mar 27, 2018, 10:15 PM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #251

monocasa wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> better That's it. The VMs on the market at the time we're absolutely terrible for phones. John Carmack was commenting on how JavaME gave you worse performance than an original IBM PC, and HotSpot's strategies absolutely destroy battery life.

Except that wasn't the only approach available. There are OEMs selling commercial JDKs for embedded use, with their own VM, JIT and AOT compiler variations, and library extensions. Contrary to Google, they always played by the rules.

[deleted]

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#483

Post by ZeroGravitas » Tue, Mar 27, 2018, 10:21 PM UTC

phkahler wrote: post #401

ABCLAW wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You actually do a clean room implementation rather than copying chunks of your competitor's work and then pretending it's allowed under fair use? Seems pretty straightforward.

Google did clean room implementation of almost all functions. They copied 9 lines of implementation code verbatim - out of thousands of lines. It does raise a question in my mind as to how that one function got copies, but it's also possible that it was re-implemented and happened to be done exactly the same without looking at the original - I honestly don't know but Google conceded it was a duplicate either way. 9 L…

Those 9 lines got copied because the function was going to get donated to openjdk anyway, so it would be stupid to rewrite a simple 9 line function that it used as that would be pointless duplication after it was merged.

So a Google employee was donating code to Oracle, and they sued them for it. It's absolutely shameful behaviour.

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#484

Post by hcknwscommenter » Tue, Mar 27, 2018, 10:21 PM UTC

protomyth wrote: post #435

treis wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose you could argue that black box reproduction is simply an elaborate form of copying. That's not relevant to this case because Google did simply just copy it.

Then why did you bring it up? My original post was about a situation where the creator of an API didn't believe it to be copyrightable and then made an attempt at protecting it a different way. Oracle believes they can copyright an API and almost everything in the industry was built with the belief that you cannot copyright an API.

>My original post was about a situation where the creator of an API didn't believe it to be copyrightable

Your original post was about IBM not being able to copyright the PC Bios. Which is simply not true in any way shape or form. https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/news/how-compaqs-clone-comp...

Relevant portion "But one problem remained with their IBM-compatible machine. How would they recreate the IBM BIOS without breaching the copyright? Why did they need a compatible BIOS (basic input output system)? . . . Some companies, such as Eagle, copied the BIOS either by reading the IBM manual to understand which interrupt codes did what or by simply copying the hard-coded ROM chip that holds the BIOS. This breached the copyright that IBM had over the BIOS and so did not take IBM long to prevent such companies from selling more of those machines. However, there is a way to bypass these types of copyrights with the use of a “clean room”."

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#485

Post by monocasa » Tue, Mar 27, 2018, 10:22 PM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #265

dlanouette wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Java on mobile was (virtually) dead before Android. Now it's thriving and relevant again.

It was thriving in Europe, on flaghship Nokia and Sony-Ericson devices. SavaJe OS was going to be the next generation when Android came into the scene. Android first architecture diagrams look quite similar to the initial SavaJe OS presentations.

SavaJe went bankrupt two years before Android was released.

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#486

Post by ZeroGravitas » Tue, Mar 27, 2018, 10:23 PM UTC

eco wrote: post #397

ABCLAW wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You actually do a clean room implementation rather than copying chunks of your competitor's work and then pretending it's allowed under fair use? Seems pretty straightforward.

Cool. So if I just make a Mickey Mouse cartoon from scratch I should be good.

Or a film about Snow White, Pinocchio, Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty etc.

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#487

Post by dragonwriter » Tue, Mar 27, 2018, 10:26 PM UTC

hcknwscommenter wrote: post #481

dragonwriter wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Copyright does not cover re-implementation. Copyright only covers copying. Coypright covers derivative works of copyright-protected works, as well as literal copies. If APIs are copyrightable, there is a very good case to be made that a reimplementation of an API implementation (not an API that serves a similar function, but an actual reimplementation) is a derivative work of the API itself.

An interesting argument. However, the Oracle Google case is not about derivative works. Google admitted to copying.

> However, the Oracle Google case is not about derivative works.

The Copyright Act, however, is; if APIs are protected by copyright, than making a derivative work of an API is an exclusive right of the copyright owner.

Which is a key reason why there is widespread concern about the CAFCs ruling on API copyright. (OTOH, Google losing on fair use at the CAFC makes it more likely that the API copyright issue gets to the Supreme Court in this case rather than a later one, so it might be a good thing for resolving that concern.)

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#488

Post by carussell » Tue, Mar 27, 2018, 10:27 PM UTC

kodablah wrote: post #450

carussell wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you cut my comment off right at the part where I've pre-emptively addressed your entire criticism, and then you write out a paragraph detailing this criticism anyway because your position is contained squarely within the very part of my comment that you chose to leave out?

> (except if Google wanted to factor the suit into their decisionmaking for their own reasons) > I don't think these are their own reasons as much as they would be the reasons used by anyone who fears technologies stewarded by litigious outfits.

You don't get to define "for their own reasons" to mean something else just so that you have a something to argue about. Doing something for one's "own reasons" means that the decision is theirs to make, in contrast to being legally compelled to act in a certain way. It doesn't mean acting in a way that nobody else would, nor acting in a way that nobody else would agree with.

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#489

Post by ben509 » Tue, Mar 27, 2018, 10:29 PM UTC

danShumway wrote: post #172

redm wrote: post #28

I think the part that gets lost in all of this is that Sun offered to license Java to Google previously for $100M. [1] Google turned that down and bypassed Sun because they didn't want to pay (or license). At the time, Sun was happy to see Java being used by Google, even without the license. Still, Google knew exactly what they were doing. [2] My point is, they did this to themselves and they knew what they were poss…

> My point is, they did this to themselves Whether or not they knew that someone would come along and sue them doesn't matter if the lawsuit is unjust. Even if Oracle is correct, and even if APIs can be copyrighted, Google's intent still doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is whether or not they infringed. I consider this to be a form of victim blaming. You should argue the case on its own merits, not posit t…

It wouldn't be victim blaming to criticize a company that is breached because they didn't take compsec seriously. They weren't a small company at the time and they knew this was a hazard.

Google had a responsibility to their shareholders and customers to do the right thing regardless of how stupid they thought the law was, and their attitude here was pretty arrogant. (To avoid beating up on Google, I should point out believing they could take on anything helped them do some work that changed the world for the better.)

Since the attitudes of parties involved in a case are often considered in judging the case, I think it's entirely fair to bring them up.

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#490

Post by sdfmxiid1 » Tue, Mar 27, 2018, 10:33 PM UTC

redm wrote: post #28

I think the part that gets lost in all of this is that Sun offered to license Java to Google previously for $100M. [1] Google turned that down and bypassed Sun because they didn't want to pay (or license). At the time, Sun was happy to see Java being used by Google, even without the license. Still, Google knew exactly what they were doing. [2] My point is, they did this to themselves and they knew what they were poss…

I'm having flashbacks here, but what I remember at that time was concern that if Google paid Sun, they'd be setting a precedent that way. There was a sigh of relief when they didn't, at least from some, because, regardless of how much better of a company Sun was than post-Sun Oracle, people felt like it was overreaching.

So although you're correct that Google did this themselves, the alternative was fraught with problems also. Better to fight it and lose than implicitly accept the idea and pay.

This was all happening in the context of C#, which people seem to be forgetting about too. It's important to remember that the whole idea of copyrightable API was done under the argument that it was important to protect API integrity from forks. MS provided evidence of a desire to do this (as has Google to some extent since then) but then introduced C# instead.

Anyway, this is a mess because copyrightable API is ridiculous, but Google should have been more careful with cleanroom implementations.