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Google and Oracle's decade-long copyright battle reaches Supreme Court

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Re: Google and Oracle's decade-long copyright battle reaches Supreme Court

#91

Post by josefx »

curt15 wrote: post #46
josefx wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are specific exceptions for compatibility. Android Java never tried to be compatible, various required APIs were replaced or are just flat out missing from the runtime library.

Where are such compatibility exceptions articulated? Section 107 lists four factors for fair use, including "the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole." Trying to achieve full compatibility would seem to require copying more of the original API, not less.

After going over the laws(i am not a lawyer) my reasoning might be a bit backwards. I think it would not be a 107 exception but an argument over the technical facts and the creative work contained in an API. To be compatible you have to create a copy of the facts an API describes and copyright is rather limited on collections of facts.

Re: Google and Oracle's decade-long copyright battle reaches Supreme Court

#92

Post by wtallis »

bluGill wrote: post #68
tapoxi wrote: post #14

If this (somehow) succeeds, could IBM sue Oracle over SQL compatibility?

IBM contributed SQL to international standards (Or is it just ANSI? I don't care too look that up), so probably not. It isn't clear though, joining ISO generally requires you to license your patents for a "reasonable price" (Reasonably for a big company, tens to thousands of dollars....), but of course IBM didn't agree to that back then, so would courts say IBM implicitly agreed to the standards of the day where it w…

Any ISO requirements about reasonable patent licensing would be irrelevant here, because this case is about copyrights (albeit a very patent-like category of copyrights that Oracle is trying to establish).

Re: Google and Oracle's decade-long copyright battle reaches Supreme Court

#93

Post by bitwize »

If the Supreme Court does not find in favor of Oracle, it could undermine the basis for copyright law entirely. Google copied Oracle's code. The CAFC found, correctly, that API declarations are as expressive and protectable by copyright, as any other code. Therefore, finding that the Java APIs are not covered by copyright, or that copying them was fair use, undermines copyright entirely: if the unique expression of those Java APIs are not protectable by copyright, what is?

Re: Google and Oracle's decade-long copyright battle reaches Supreme Court

#94

Post by arethuza »

jasode wrote: post #49

>This is a complete dramatization. Are you copying 10k lines of code from a licensed code base into your project without permission and using it in your commercial product? To point back to the substance of the thread and Oracle's claims... Google didn't copy any of Oracle/Sun's Java source code base into Android Java. Oracle lawyers acknowledge this. Instead, Google copied the API of function name spellings and also…

I used to know a very bright chap who refused to use meaningful identifiers - his argument was mainly that you could never capture enough information in an identifier to be really accurate so you shouldn't even try.

Nice chap, but fortunately he was a school friend and not a colleague!

Maybe we should just use GUIDs for everything :-)

Re: Google and Oracle's decade-long copyright battle reaches Supreme Court

#95

Post by est31 »

user5994461 wrote: post #71
Longhanks wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all of Europe is in the EU, though.

Norway, Switzerland and Iceland are very close to the EU culturally even though they are not full members of the union.

To add to this, EEA members still have to comply by EU laws. Norway and Iceland are EEA members. Switzerland is not, but it has made a separate deal with the EU that has almost the same content as the EEA deals (idk the differences in detail).

Re: Google and Oracle's decade-long copyright battle reaches Supreme Court

#96

Post by yetihehe »

threatofrain wrote: post #88
jasode wrote: post #49

>This is a complete dramatization. Are you copying 10k lines of code from a licensed code base into your project without permission and using it in your commercial product? To point back to the substance of the thread and Oracle's claims... Google didn't copy any of Oracle/Sun's Java source code base into Android Java. Oracle lawyers acknowledge this. Instead, Google copied the API of function name spellings and also…

There will likely be no such thing as "drop-in" replacement anymore either.

Or it will create api compatibility layers (shims).

Re: Google and Oracle's decade-long copyright battle reaches Supreme Court

#97

Post by rightbyte »

crazypython wrote: post #62
tasubotadas wrote: post #10

I think it is quite likely that we as a society would be better off without any kind of copyright or IP. This might prevent some of the parties doing huge upfront investments in some of the projects, but if we learned something from OSS and, most importantly, Linux is that gradual and tiny improvements over 30 years can compound to a behemoth that eats any commercial solution for lunch.

Richard Stallman would like 30 year copyrights, and to unbundle copyright.

I wonder when the first GPLd software will be public copyright and I can modify it and sell it at my wits? 60 years?

Re: Google and Oracle's decade-long copyright battle reaches Supreme Court

#98

Post by dlandis »

I wouldn't be surprised if the decision is very narrow in this case or if it is even postponed again until there is a ninth justice. But I have a bad feeling it will be decided in favor of Oracle, since considering specific APIs part of the "idea" rather than the expression seems to be more of a convention among software engineers rather than actually part of the law. APIs can be "expressions", after all, it just depends on how literal or pedantic you want to be in your reading of the law. The real solution seems like it would be to update the outdated law.

Re: Google and Oracle's decade-long copyright battle reaches Supreme Court

#99

Post by raverbashing »

est31 wrote: post #36
gonzo41 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could be a good moment for the European software industry.

EU has the copyright directive with its upload filters.

But as the parent said, this doesn't apply

And guess what, all the American services have the upload filters already. So the point is moot

Re: Google and Oracle's decade-long copyright battle reaches Supreme Court

#100

Post by snarf21 »

jasode wrote: post #49

>This is a complete dramatization. Are you copying 10k lines of code from a licensed code base into your project without permission and using it in your commercial product? To point back to the substance of the thread and Oracle's claims... Google didn't copy any of Oracle/Sun's Java source code base into Android Java. Oracle lawyers acknowledge this. Instead, Google copied the API of function name spellings and also…

In addition to the specific claims and their validity, one fact remains. Oracle bought Sun for the sole purpose of suing Google. Full stop. I used to date someone involved in the case when it was just getting started. Oracle can go pound sand.
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