Google’s Supreme Court faceoff with Oracle was a disaster for Google

I agree. Personally, I espouse the "copyright should not exist at all" viewpoint. However, I think in the current legal framework, APIs are clearly copyrightable. However, re-implementing the APIs should obviously be allowed under fair use.

Remember that copyright exists solely for the purposes of increasing the production of otherwise-easily-copyable works that take time to create but then are "worthless" (i.e. the marginal cost of each additional copy is ~0 or negligible).

From the Constitution itself:

"[the United States Congress shall have power] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."

I can see how one can argue that software itself - the actual code - will benefit in the same way (though the myriad successful open source projects and SaaS platforms seem to suggest it's not necessary......). However, I think it's pretty dang clear that limiting the copying of APIs will broadly lead to less software being created. It's well established that, for software, ideas are cheap, and that competitive advantages primarily come from excellent execution and excellent VC funding. If someone re-implements your API and your business folds, it's not because your API was your secret sauce and they stole it. It's because their re-implementation - which, by definition of an API, must be "the exact same thing" - was better than yours. They produced a better product, and the market rewarded them for that.

So, for a legal framework whose purpose, as outlined in the constitution, is to promote the arts and sciences, I think it's pretty clear what the path forward is.

Little note: what you're really asking is whether the authors of GPL software would have grounds to sue Oracle for copyright infringement.

As another HN commenter put it to me when I made the same mistake: "The GPL is not viral." If one party breaks the terms of the license, then normal copyright goes into effect.

>adjudicate your violation, all under one roof.

You still have Article III remedies in that case.

If the extreme version of non-delegation took hold, it would be the end of all rational regulation. Do you REALLY want Congress writing technical documents about effective isotropic radiated power? Or the shape of curb ramps?

It depends on how you define things. For example, do you measure by where Democrats end up in practice, or where they want to go? For example, the United States is to the right of Germany in terms of universal healthcare. But Medicare 4 All, where many Democrats appear to want to go in the long term--though they disagree about how quickly they want to get there--would be quite to the left compared to the multi-payor mandatory insurance system currently in place in Germany.

It also varies quite a bit by subject-area. In Germany, the constitutional court held (around the same time as Roe) that legalized abortion was unconstitutional, violating the fetus's right to life. Today, it is technically still illegal, but decriminalized up to 12 weeks. (Shorter than in almost every state in the U.S.) The abortion rate in Germany is much lower. The Democratic party's views on abortion would not be considered center-right in Germany. On gay rights, Germany got legalized same-sex marriage a couple of years after the U.S. And things like surrogacy, which gay male couples often rely on to have kids, is illegal.

Or, consider that Merkel, a member of the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has called for a ban on burqa. To my knowledge, even Trump has not said anything like that. Similarly, on immigration, while Merkel allowed Muslim refugees, her successor declared that a "mistake" which the country had "learned from." Democratic favorability to refugees would not be a center-right position in Germany.

In the area of religion, the U.S. is extremely left wing compared to every country but France. In the U.S., teaching religion (as such) is banned in public schools. In the U.K., Germany, Italy, and Spain (four of the five largest EU countries) it's actually required, either by statute or by the constitution. Children have a right to receive a religious education at the public expense in these countries.

In the area of taxes, the Democratic Party is center-right in some ways but quite left win in others. Merkel has championed Germany following along with Trump's corporate tax cuts. The Democrats' proposal to repeal that would not be a center-right position in Germany. The Democrats' proposal to tax capital gains as ordinary income is quite left wing. Most Western European countries, including Germany, have preferential treatment for capital gains taxes. In general, the U.S. has the most progressive tax code in the OECD: https://opportunitywa.org/u-s-federal-income-tax-structure-m...

But Democrats' tepid support for labor unions, for example, would be considered center-right or even right-wing in Germany.

On the whole, on social, religious, and immigration issues, the current Democratic Party is solidly to the left compared to western Europe. On labor issues, it's to the right. On corporate and investment taxation, it's solidly on the left. On healthcare, its to the right, but mainly for reasons that have to do with minimizing disruption to peoples' current private insurance. Where they want to end up, single payer public insurance, is solidly on the left.

Our next Vice President will very likely be a Democrat who, in 2019, supported single-payer public healthcare, treating capital gains as ordinary income, a 35% corporate income tax rate, a financial transactions tax, publicly funded abortion with no compromises such as waiting periods, Green New Deal, free healthcare for people who immigrate illegally, etc. If she actually believed those things, she would be a solidly mainstream left politician in most European countries.