Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf] • Hacker News Board

Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]

#681

Post by ClumsyPilot » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 7:10 PM UTC

sprayk wrote: post #530

hctaw wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is something I struggle with, personally. I have fundamental problems with an unelected council that serves for life creating law. However, we have an extremely inefficient form of Government that doesn't allow for quick adaptation, and legal questions will arise tomorrow that did not occur to legislators today. The courts are supposed to help resolve any ambiguity. The question over whether or not APIs are copy…

Slow legislation is a feature rather than a bug. Less opportunity for reactionary laws based on emotion or a collective misunderstanding of events that we later regret. It's not a perfect deterrent, obviously, e.g. the Patriot Act

Cipyright law needed reform for like 40 years. Thre is slow, and there is dysfunctional

Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]

#682

Post by avs733 » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 7:11 PM UTC

lostcolony wrote: post #601

kyrra wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thomas's dissent explicitly points this out. Without diving into "are APIs copyrightable?", the majority are skipping what should have been evaluated first before saying if they were fair-use or not.

Yeah, but Thomas said "The majority can not square it's fundamentally flawed fair-use analysis with a finding that declaring code is copyrightable". Which is obviously false. A fair use analysis can -only- take place if the assumption is the code is copyrightable; if the majority had first decided the code was not copyrightable, fair use is immaterial. Thomas' argument, if followed, would either have led to this same…

Over the years, the STEM professional in me has become increasingly intrigued by the ways in which law progresses because it is so fundamentally different from my preferred method of making sense of the world.

Within that, and with my incredibly limited understanding of how law evolves in the courts...it seems like Thomas says demonstrably incorrect things more frequently than I am comfortable with.

Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]

#683

Post by stickfigure » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 7:12 PM UTC

marcosdumay wrote: post #325

stickfigure wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I led the development of a large GUI app using J++ in the late 90s. This fear you describe is unwarranted. It's worth pointing out that the list of examples of "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" on the wikipedia page of that name [1] contains zero actual successful examples of it working. Perhaps you have noticed that you aren't reading this page in an ActiveX control. This is a boogeyman. Don't be afraid of it. [1]: http…

> It's worth pointing out that the list of examples of "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" on the wikipedia page of that name [1] contains zero actual successful examples of it working. Looks like the successful examples were successful enough for everybody to forget about the originals. There is basically no other YP/Kerberos/SMB implementation in use that didn't follow from the MS copy. Netscape was successfully lead to…

SMB seems alive and well? I don't see an "Extinguish" there.

You seem to be conflating "beat in the marketplace" with EEE. Netscape didn't fail because of ActiveX. They failed because web browsers and web servers became free.

Competing office suites struggle not because Microsoft extended some underlying protocol. Like it or not (and I personally don't), Office delivers an incredible amount of business value to its users.

Platform independent dev-tools were, and are, still around. But like the browser, it's tough to make a living selling dev tools when they are generally free.

Microsoft has been a very successful company for many reasons. It's not clear that "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" is one of them.

Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]

#684

Post by btilly » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 7:13 PM UTC

curt15 wrote: post #658

btilly wrote: post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the result is a big relief, I think it's not as decisive as I'm noticing some headlines (and commenters) are claiming. It is even less decisive than you're saying. The fact that the Supreme Court decided not to overturn the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that APIs are copyrightable means that binding precedent on every court except the Supreme is that they are. And for fair use, one of…

>The fact that the Supreme Court decided not to overturn the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that APIs are copyrightable means that binding precedent on every court except the Supreme is that they are. Federal Circuit's ruling would only be precedent in the 9th circuit. As it does not have original jurisdiction in copyright disputes (only patent cases), it doesn't supercede any copyrightabili…

Federal Circuit's ruling would only be precedent in the 9th circuit.

No, not only 9th circuit.

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is binding nationwide. And if the case includes claims about patents and/or trademarks, even if those specific claims are thrown out, then the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit becomes the court that the case is appealed to.

Which is how this particular case wound up there in the first place.

Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]

#685

Post by wtallis » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 7:15 PM UTC

iam-TJ wrote: post #631

comex wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, interoperability is relevant, because it affects the necessity of copying that particular code rather than making one's own substitute, which in turn affects fair use. But Google's lawyers (inexplicably, in my opinion) failed to talk much about the fact that many Java libraries are interoperable between Android and Oracle Java, leaving the courts to think only in terms of full applications which are not interope…

Google didn't argue on interoperability since that would have torpedoed their core arguments that Android is a transformative work creating a new market outside of, and different from, Sun Java Standard Edition. To argue interoperability Google would have needed to copy the entire JAVA SE API. The key difference is that Java SE (designed for desktops) API was considered by Google mostly not required on smartphone/mob…

> To argue interoperability Google would have needed to copy the entire JAVA SE API.

Only if Google wanted to argue interoperability as defined by Sun/Oracle. I've never seen a coherent argument why Sun's TCK should be considered the sole authority on what degree of interoperability should have legal significance in this copyright case, particularly given that Sun's TCK was part of their trademark licensing program.

And there are obvious reasons why a court would shy away from letting something like Sun's TCK be used as part of a significant legal test; for example, it's really awkward for legal purposes to define something as copyright infringement while it's a work in progress, but it suddenly becomes okay as soon as it attains the status of being 100% compatible and bug-free. It's also not clear how the law could reasonably handle a definition of interoperability that Sun/Oracle can unilaterally make into a moving target and add arbitrary requirements to.

Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]

#686

Post by Sohcahtoa82 » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 7:18 PM UTC

UncleMeat wrote: post #388

VikingCoder wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, when the code allows an exploit, that's a bug. Thomas is supposed to help us understand the intent of the code - what the Requirement was. Yes, it's better for us if the code reflects the intent perfectly. But to the degree that's not possible, we need someone to Interpret the code. Textualists are trying to ignore the fact that there's a difference between intent and implementation. The Legislature should do a f…

> Textualists are trying to ignore the fact that there's a difference between intent and implementation. It is actually the opposite. Textualists say that intent doesn't mean squat. Originalists will consider intent. Textualists say that intent is unknowable and therefore you must exclusively use the text of the law, regardless of how stupid that might seem.

I blame Textualists for the existence of legalese.

Laws and contracts are so damn hard to read because they need to close every possible conceivable loophole. You get sentences that use multiple synonyms of the same verb because someone is going to come up with some strange incredibly-specific difference between them.

Imagine some parent telling their kid to not jump on the bed, and the kid says "I'm not jumping, I'm hopping!". That's a kid that's going to grow up being a Textualist.

> Textualists say that intent is unknowable

I think Textualists are claiming this in bad faith, knowing damn well that intent is very well knowable, but argue otherwise to advance their agenda.

Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]

#687

Post by c-smile » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 7:19 PM UTC

Thinking out of box.

Am I right that this may essentially end Dart project at Google?

As far as I understand Dart was an attempt to have another Java in case that Oracle/Google conflict will not go anywhere.

As soon as Google will be able to use Java on dart platforms there will be no need for Dart.

Just guessing.

Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]

#688

Post by reikonomusha » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 7:20 PM UTC

steveklabnik wrote: post #584

CydeWeys wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While true, it's not particularly relevant. When you acquire a company you're taking on its liabilities along with its assets.

There's a line in here that says "In the 1990s, Oracle created a programming language called Java." that is funny on its face, but is written this way for the exact reason you're talking about.

To their credit, they are explicit (in a footnote I believe) about equating Sun and Oracle.

Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]

#689

Post by wnoise » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 7:24 PM UTC

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #650

esarbe wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dissenting opinion is stupid. Thomas may be a bad justice, but he has even less of a clue about software devolopment. Of course there is a difference between an API and the code in general. This decision sidestepped the question of whether APIs are copyrightable or not by declaring that this particular instance was fair use. Reimplementing interfaces has always been fair-use, they are definitions. Re-Implementati…

> This decision sidestepped the question of whether APIs are copyrightable or not by declaring that this particular instance was fair use. This is incorrect, before fair use was tested, copyrightability was established, which is why the fair use defense, which is an exemption for copyright violation, was then determined. If you followed the various appeals and rulings this case entailed, you'd have to be aware of thi…

It's convoluted.

Ninth Circuit courts held APIs weren't copyrightable. The Federal Circuit (which only had jurisdiction because of the thrown out patent claims) held that they were copyrightable. The majority of SCOTUS here explicitly said they weren't deciding copyright of APIs. Instead they looked at both cases and said: "either it isn't copyrightable, but even if it is copyrightable, that this is fair use." Either way, Oracle loses. Arguing in the alternative is a common legal pattern, as is ruling on the narrowest possible ground.

Generally when a circuit court makes a ruling, it's only "binding" precedent on subsidiary courts within that same circuit. The federal circuit is weird though, as it doesn't have a geographical jurisdiction, instead it has a subject matter jurisdiction. If a case has patent claims (or a few other things), an appeal gets routed there.

So, effectively, APIs are copyrightable if there is a linked patent claim in the same lawsuit.

Courts can certainly use the Federal Circuit ruling as "persuasive" precedent, and rule the same way, but it's not binding, and it's not settled law.

Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]

#690

Post by szhu » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 7:25 PM UTC

Great line:

> Unlike many other computer programs, the value of the copied lines is in significant part derived from the in- vestment of users (here computer programmers) who have learned the API’s system.