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

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

#701

Post by imtringued »

az226 wrote: post #353
cashewchoo wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The reason we have copyright protections to begin with is to reward and incentivize creation of new creative works with intellectual property protections. If you spent a large amount of resources in creating the library of Java code, why should only the implementation be protected? They've spent a lot of resources to come up with which methods to create, what to call them, how to describe them, how to organize them,…

There is more to IP rights than copyright.

>why should only the implementation be protected?

Because copyright only protects authorship. You are the owner of your own creative works but you are not the owner of other people's creative works. What Oracle wants is to prevent independent reimplementation of Java libraries which is clearly a case of patent law not copyright law.

The Java standard library casts a "shadow". That shadow is the API but the standard library is not the API. Someone who only looks at the shadow can rebuild their own version of the standard library without directly copying the standard library. This is called clean room design and it is done all the time. Patents are the primary way of preventing clean room designs by competitors.

The fact that people on HN are insisting on bloating copyright even further makes my blood boil. IP law already created lots of solutions for all these problems. Stop trying to shoehorn everything into copyright.

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

#702

Post by imtringued »

luckylion wrote: post #644
segfaultbuserr wrote: post #618

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you invent something, say, a new battery, and somebody else copies it, You should distinguish the concepts of copyright and patent. A hardware design, like a battery, is not copyrightable in general. The technical drawings or a written description can be copyrighted, but the abstract technology and process cannot. Under copyright laws, it's illegal for me to duplicate your documents, but there is nothing to stop…

Sure, patents are a different thing, but they serve a similar purpose. "If you don't have to to the research and invest in creating the technology by copying, you can do it cheaper which the market will reward" is what both copyright and patents are created to change.

They don't serve a similar purpose.

Copyright protects authorship.

Patents protect against reinvention.

It's clear that Oracle needs a patent unless Google outright stole the standard library.

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

#703

Post by imtringued »

nobody9999 wrote: post #577
granzymes wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Oracle wins on copyright (I think it is almost impossible for Google to count to 5 on their merger doctrine argument) but I disagree that fair use is a long shot. The justices that brought up the case’s procedural history were all unanimously skeptical that the Federal Circuit correctly set aside the fair use verdict in favor of Google. I think the most likely outcome of this case (especial…

>I wouldn’t be surprised if Oracle wins on copyright (I think it is almost impossible for Google to count to 5 on their merger doctrine argument) but I disagree that fair use is a long shot. I wonder about the differences (which definitely do exist) between Oracle's Java API and the OpenJDK Java API. While they really have to be substantially similar to allow interoperability, OpenJDK is open source (GPL) and Oracle'…

>2. Should an API be considered eligible for copyright, wouldn't that enable opportunities for language and library developers to restrict others from developing competing (via performance or utility enhancements) languages/libraries by forcing anyone who wished to implement enhancements to either purchase a license or flat out deny them the ability to do so (assuming the product --including the API isn't open source)?

It would be a software patent except not by name and it would last significantly longer. I can already see both software and hardware patents being abandoned if this court sets a precedent that APIs can be copyrighted. The next day people will want to add everything patents do simply because copyright has a longer duration and it is effective immediately.

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

#704

Post by imtringued »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #368
nodamage wrote: post #240

I'm not sure why so many people here seem to be surprised by this, I got the exact same impression from the hearing. The problem for Google on the copyrightability front is that "compilations" of non-copyrightable items can be copyrightable even if the underlying items themselves are not, if the "selection, coordination, or arrangement" of those items involves sufficient creativity to be considered an "original work…

> As applied to Java, individual method signatures like min and max might not be copyrightable, but someone had to go in and organize those individual methods into classes, and organize those classes into packages. That act of organization likely implies that the Java API (taken as a whole) constitutes a copyrightable work, even if the individual method signatures are not. The problem with this theory is that class a…

You can copyright recipes but it's functionally useless if you want to protect against reinvention. Someone can make cookies based on your recipe and then make them again without looking at the recipe and then finally write their own recipe and still not violate copyright. You could repeat this for every single recipe in the book and then create an almost identical book with exactly the same recipes in the same order. There would be some minor differences because your memory is off and you have some creative freedom to design the book any way you want. However you wrote that book yourself and therefore it is yours.

Is there still a way to protect your cookies? Yes, it's called patent law. It's explicitly designed to prevent reinvention.

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

#705

Post by imtringued »

mumblemumble wrote: post #395
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As applied to Java, individual method signatures like min and max might not be copyrightable, but someone had to go in and organize those individual methods into classes, and organize those classes into packages. That act of organization likely implies that the Java API (taken as a whole) constitutes a copyrightable work, even if the individual method signatures are not. The problem with this theory is that class a…

You seem to have misread what was being said, because you seem to be arguing against something that was explicitly stated to not be the case: > individual recipes are generally not copyrightable , but if you compile a set of recipes and publish them in a cookbook, the cookbook itself becomes copyrightable. (emphasis mine) The law understands that the whole is more than the sum of its parts. And Java adds up a lot of…

>The law understands that the whole is more than the sum of its parts.

No it doesn't. If that was the case then you could just do piecewise reinvention and then later on recombine the result.

Grasp the difference. Copyright prevents 1:1 copies, not against reinvention, patents do that.

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

#706

Post by imtringued »

mantap wrote: post #502
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is the difference between an API (interface) and implementation? The algorithm. Not the algorithm. The algorithm is essentially the recipe. The algorithm is merge sort, or depth first search. It's the contract the API gives you, more or less. "This function does merge sort." But there are unlimited possible implementations of merge sort and each one is copyrightable. And one implementation doesn't infringe the…

I don't agree that the steps of an implementation are copyrightable. Different versions of an algorithm are different algorithms. One merge sort algorithm may perform much better than another despite both being merge sort and having the same asymptotic complexity. You could patent a particular version of merge sort. Copyright protects how code is written not what it does. And the how applies just as much to interface…

Copyright protects your code as it is. The work itself is protected. Nobody can copy it and hopefully Google didn't copy anything.

It doesn't protect against reinvention because it's easy to bypass copyright through clean room designs which is probably what Google did.

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

#707

Post by imtringued »

DarkWiiPlayer wrote: post #631
nodamage wrote: post #240

I'm not sure why so many people here seem to be surprised by this, I got the exact same impression from the hearing. The problem for Google on the copyrightability front is that "compilations" of non-copyrightable items can be copyrightable even if the underlying items themselves are not, if the "selection, coordination, or arrangement" of those items involves sufficient creativity to be considered an "original work…

> What's worse for Google is that code has always been considered copyrightable so arguing that APIs are non-copyrightable is essentially carving out an exception for a specific type of code. Not exactly; an API can be completely re-implemented from scratch and still be compatible. If it was just about the API code, there wouldn't even be a case. The idea that an API could legally be an "original work of authorship"…

>The idea that an API could legally be an "original work of authorship" makes a lot of sense; but the technical implications could indeed harm the industry overall.

It doesn't make sense because an API doesn't exist in the work. Copyrighting APIs is functionally useless because you can have multiple works with the same API without violating copyright through clean room designs. Therefore whatever protection you want should cover more than one work. Copyright only covers the works you create yourself. It doesn't cover works that other people create even when they are directly inspired by your works. We have patent law for this.

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

#708

Post by nojito »

dannyw wrote: post #534
nojito wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Giving a lawyer an unwinnable case does not take away from the fact that he is one of the most successful SC lawyers in the world.

This case is not unwinnable. And lawyers can specialise in specific areas. This lawyer seems unprepared at best, and simply not appropriate for this at worst. I'm not saying he's a bad lawyer, I'm saying he's not the right lawyer for this case.

>I'm saying he's not the right lawyer for this case.

Feel free to name anyone who has a better record in front of the SC.

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

#709

Post by [deleted] »

beerandt wrote: post #467
nojito wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

scotusblog is biased because they have/had a working relationship with Google.

Idk about Google... But they're biased for more reasons than that. But they are still an excellent source, and are about as good as it gets compared to most (supposed) non-partisan media these days. Fwiw, I also believe their bias to be almost entirely unintentional, which is way more than can be said for most sites. For topical seminars, where authors might actually argue for a side, they do a decent job of getting…

[deleted]

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

#710

Post by nojito »

dragonwriter wrote: post #429
nojito wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has had 6 years to show this disaster and yet they could not list a single example of it happening. The world is going to be fine.

> Google has had 6 years to show this disaster and yet they could not list a single example of it happening. How? For that to be true, there would have to be binding precedent applicable outside this case. But Federal Circuit decisions on legal questions—for instance copyright—outside their special subjects (patent claims is what got this case before them) do not create binding precedent for any lower court. Had this…

The courts ruled 6 years ago.

There was nothing stopping anyone from capitalizing on that ruling and moving forward with bring this "disaster"

This was brought up during the oral arguments and Google did not have a great answer.

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