White House Sides with Oracle, Tells Supreme Court APIs Are Copyrightable • Hacker News Board

Re: White House Sides with Oracle, Tells Supreme Court APIs Are Copyrightable

#111

Post by bbatsell » Wed, May 27, 2015, 11:39 PM UTC

saryant wrote: post #72

rodgerd wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Con: all the BSDs and Linux are now owned by whoever most recently picked up the POSIX APIs. ReactOS and WINE are now illegal. SQL is the private property of IBM. Pro: I guess if you hate Google because you love Steve Jobs or something it looks like a win.

None of that has happened. An amicus brief has been filed, that is all. An amicus brief is not law and the Supreme Court has not yet ruled one way or another.

The current holding comes from the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals and is in Oracle's favor. Unlike other regional Courts of Appeal, the Fed Circuit's decisions are binding nationwide because the court has subject-matter jurisdiction rather than geographic jurisdiction. The Solicitor General's amicus is in full support of the Fed Circuit's decision, and the Supreme Court has historically taken an SG amicus hugely into account when the SG is not a party to the case. Should they choose to do so here, they will not grant cert, let the decision stand, and it will be binding nationwide due to stare decisis.

So, while your statement is true, the situation is more dire than you suggest.

Re: White House Sides with Oracle, Tells Supreme Court APIs Are Copyrightable

#112

Post by datashovel » Wed, May 27, 2015, 11:47 PM UTC

  Oracle ... said the appellate court's decision was a
  "win for the entire software industry that relies on
  copyright protection to fuel innovation."

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/01/supreme-court-ask...

Re: White House Sides with Oracle, Tells Supreme Court APIs Are Copyrightable

#113

Post by pekk » Wed, May 27, 2015, 11:50 PM UTC

ianstallings wrote: post #58

pekk wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's really misleading, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised when the next election is rapidly approaching.

It's not misleading. It's quite literally their stated opinion: http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/google... This was to let the courts know how they felt on the matter, even though they aren't directly involved.

Exactly whose stated opinion? That is the problem. DoJ and "the White House" are not exactly the same thing.

Re: White House Sides with Oracle, Tells Supreme Court APIs Are Copyrightable

#114

Post by arihant » Wed, May 27, 2015, 11:51 PM UTC

A parallel question - who owns copyrights to community written APIs of MySQL that Oracle so conveniently sells?

Re: White House Sides with Oracle, Tells Supreme Court APIs Are Copyrightable

#115

Post by ambrice » Wed, May 27, 2015, 11:58 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #98

mark-r wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but it adds copyright trolls to the mix. At least you can count on patents to expire eventually, copyrights are forever in software years.

The key distinction is, of course, you can't infringe copyright by accident. If you build your platform on someone else's proprietary API, without their permission, then can you really complain when you get sued?

So, wine (the windows emulator) should be illegal?

Re: White House Sides with Oracle, Tells Supreme Court APIs Are Copyrightable

#116

Post by datashovel » Thu, May 28, 2015, 12:04 AM UTC

discordianfish wrote: post #69

I think this will cause a lot people to move away from java and ultimately harm Oracle most, causing other companies to not follow their example. Let's just stay away from java, there are plenty of free languages.

I'm looking forward to seeing if there are any relevant announcements at Google IO over the next few days.

Re: White House Sides with Oracle, Tells Supreme Court APIs Are Copyrightable

#117

Post by JoshTriplett » Thu, May 28, 2015, 12:06 AM UTC

laumars wrote: post #97

JoshTriplett wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No more so than the games, and some emulators have reimplemented BIOSes.

> No more so than the games It goes without saying that copying games is illegal. Well, bar a few caveats which seldom apply to people who run emulators. > some emulators have reimplemented BIOSes I'm sure some do but many don't - hence my point.

> It goes without saying that copying games is illegal. Well, bar a few caveats which seldom apply to people who run emulators.

Obtaining ROMs for games you own may or may not be, depending on your jurisdiction; in any case, it seems entirely ethical to have ROMs for games you own.

Likewise for BIOSes.

Re: White House Sides with Oracle, Tells Supreme Court APIs Are Copyrightable

#118

Post by the_watcher » Thu, May 28, 2015, 12:28 AM UTC

Joky wrote: post #21

I've always wondered if there is not a general conspiracy of lawyers to protect their "industry". They have all interests to keep the current patent system, as well as extending copyright protection to anything: it keeps the demand for lawyers high. Of course you have the same view of software and/or system engineer, who build broken systems just to justify billing more maintenance :)

Many judges are former trial lawyers. I don't think there is some vast conspiracy, but many of these laws are in the interest of trial lawyers, so many judges probably have at least some subconscious bias towards interpreting laws in their direction.

Re: White House Sides with Oracle, Tells Supreme Court APIs Are Copyrightable

#119

Post by schoen » Thu, May 28, 2015, 12:30 AM UTC

Natsu wrote: post #89

schoen wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current posture of this case is a petition for certiorari (Google asking the Supreme Court to hear its appeal). These are not merits briefs (about who should win) because the Supreme Court hasn't agreed to hear it yet. They might decline to hear it and then it would go back to a lower court for further proceedings in the underlying case, but with arguably an adverse precedent out of the Federal Circuit on the boo…

Slight correction regarding the part saying that 'anyone' may file one: "An amicus curiae brief may be filed only by an attorney admitted to practice before this Court as provided in Rule 5." https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/supct/rule_37

Sorry, that's quite right. I should have said "through an attorney" to avoid the possible interpretation that you could personally write and file a brief.

That rule is stricter than other Supreme Court rules related to filings by parties. If you're a natural person and not a corporation, you can file pro se pleadings before the Supreme Court in your own cases. Just not in other people's cases.

Re: White House Sides with Oracle, Tells Supreme Court APIs Are Copyrightable

#120

Post by ianstallings » Thu, May 28, 2015, 12:32 AM UTC

pekk wrote: post #113

ianstallings wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not misleading. It's quite literally their stated opinion: http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/google... This was to let the courts know how they felt on the matter, even though they aren't directly involved.

Exactly whose stated opinion? That is the problem. DoJ and "the White House" are not exactly the same thing.

That's why I linked the brief - Donald Verrilli Jr. is Solicitor General of the US, an Obama appointee.