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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

#121

Post by jasode »

mantap wrote: post #86
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…

> If Oracle ultimately wins, it seems like millions of programmers will have to reach for a thesaurus to find synonyms to name functions. We'll have to waste brain cycles coming up and alternative spellings of methods to stay away from copyright infringement. This isn't how copyright works though. It's neither necessary or sufficient. If you copy an API but change the words using a thesaurus you are still copying it…

>If you copy an API but change the words using a thesaurus you are still copying it so it would still be infringement.

From the previous thread I referred to, a commenter cited an excerpt from a circuit court opinion about alternative naming :

[...] Using the district court's "java.lang.Math.max" example, Oracle explains that the developers could have called it any number of things, including "Math.maximum" or "Arith.larger." This was not a situation where Oracle was selecting among preordained names and phrases to create its packages. As the district court recognized, moreover, "the Android method and class names could have been different from the names of their counterparts in Java and still have worked." Copyrightability Decision, 872 F. Supp. 2d at 976. [...]

[1] don't know where the canonical source is so I provide a Google search link: https://www.google.com/search?q=Using+the+district+court%27s...

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

#122

Post by Spivak »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #107
yetihehe wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or it will create api compatibility layers (shims).

Wouldn't the compatibility layer be infringing copyright?

This is where I think a lot of people are talking past this case. If you use the API surface area for the purposes of interoperability with existing software then you're covered and it's not infringement.

If you use the API surface area for your own software because you like the design, copying it is easier than coming up with something new, or you want to provide a familiar programming environment to developers then you're looking at infringing.

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

#123

Post by regulation_d »

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.

It seems to me very intuitive that a lack of IP protection of some sort discourages innovation.

I cannot imagine wanting to write a book if I didn't have some recourse against people distributing my book freely.

The policy concerns around IP protection for both patent and copyright are clear: the minimum amount of protection that doesn't discourage innovation.

Lawmakers know or should know that we all benefit from a rich public domain, which is why there are limitations on both copyright and patents in terms of both duration and general application, and I am happy to argue that copyright is too strong, particularly in terms of duration (thanks Disney), but I simply can't agree that we "would be better off without any kind of copyright or IP".

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

#124

Post by seanhunter »

kemonocode wrote: post #117
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're smart people and these are not hard concepts.

It still requires domain-specific knowledge and there are vested interests from both sides. I'm afraid because the world has little to gain and much to lose from the outcome of this case.

These people are experts at getting up to speed on diverse topics and have amazing teams clerking for them and a huge bench of experts to call on. I'm sure the domain-specific knowledge will be fine although the vested interests will clearly be a problem.

I have never been involved in a US Supreme Court case but back in 1999 or so I was asked to prep a barrister in the UK on the guts of TCP/IP. I literally jumped in a black cab at short notice with 6 or 7 volumes of W. Richard Stevens and spent an afternoon showing him and a few others from his chambers packet dumps and TCP state diagrams and drawing some diagrams of my own showing what a webserver, browser does, how caching works, etc. The next day using my information synthesized with some really archaic law about what is and isn't a document he issued his opinion about where particular actions occur (and therefore what legal jurisdictions apply) when someone does something on a website. It was extremely thoughtful and nuanced and literally a day earlier he didn't even know what a webpage was.

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

#125

Post by MereInterest »

compsciphd wrote: post #75
marcosdumay wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is different. In the GPL case, you are distributing the software, not just using the API. I don't know if it's different enough, but it's not the exact same issue.

if I distribute the GPL library (say libreadline) with my app, I'd probably agree with you. If I expect the end user to have libreadline installed on their machine (from debian / redhat repos, and for argument sake Debian/Red Hat/et al aren't distributing my app), I think I'd disagree. I'm not distributing any GPLd code. I think its a bit more complicated if Debian/Red Hat are distributing my non GPLd app that links…

I think I'd personally put the line a bit farther. If you distribute libreadline, that would be fine without GPLing the main program. If you make any check to verify that you are running a specific version of libreadline, then that is not fine, because you are preventing me from replacing it with a different version.

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

#126

Post by Wowfunhappy »

Spivak wrote: post #122
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't the compatibility layer be infringing copyright?

This is where I think a lot of people are talking past this case. If you use the API surface area for the purposes of interoperability with existing software then you're covered and it's not infringement. If you use the API surface area for your own software because you like the design, copying it is easier than coming up with something new, or you want to provide a familiar programming environment to developers then…

> If you use the API surface area for the purposes of interoperability with existing software

But wasn't that one of Google's original goals for Android? Making porting existing Java apps easy?

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

#127

Post by dontblink »

Spivak wrote: post #115
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From everything I've read, Wine would quite clearly be illegal if the court rules in favor of Oracle. I am very worried about this case.

I don't think it would be infringement. The main difference between WINE and Android is where the interoperability integration points are. WINE is using the Windows names for the purposes of allowing Windows programs to run. This is a case where a judge would easily grant fair-use because you have to use the API surface area to provide compatibility for existing programs. Android is using the Java names for the purpo…

You are making a distinction when there isn't one from the legal opinion perspective.

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

#128

Post by tachyonbeam »

op03 wrote: post #109
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…

Not if you marry a good lawyer. Just a tip.

Just hope you never have to divorce them.

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

#129

Post by frant-hartm »

tiffanyh wrote: post #70

Question: so if Oracle wins, does that mean no one can create compatible APIs in general? I know a lot of folks have created compatible APIs for Amazon S3, including Oracle themselves. Does this become against the law if Oracle wins? https://docs.cloud.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/Object/Task...

AWS SDK is under Apache 2 license, so anyone is able to use it (suppose you comply with the license - attribution etc..).

Google did a similar thing with OpenJDK (which is GPL) starting with Android N, why they didn't do it in the first place I don't know, Sun published OpenJDK under GPL in 2007, first 1.0 Android release was in 2008.

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

#130

Post by mantap »

jasode wrote: post #121
mantap wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If Oracle ultimately wins, it seems like millions of programmers will have to reach for a thesaurus to find synonyms to name functions. We'll have to waste brain cycles coming up and alternative spellings of methods to stay away from copyright infringement. This isn't how copyright works though. It's neither necessary or sufficient. If you copy an API but change the words using a thesaurus you are still copying it…

>If you copy an API but change the words using a thesaurus you are still copying it so it would still be infringement. From the previous thread I referred to, a commenter cited an excerpt from a circuit court opinion about alternative naming : [...] Using the district court's "java.lang.Math.max" example, Oracle explains that the developers could have called it any number of things, including "Math.maximum" or "Arith…

If I take a book, say Harry Potter, and use a thesaurus to change words to their synonyms in the hopes of avoiding copyright, no court is going to agree that I can now publish Barry Otter and the Association of the Eagle as my own creation.
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