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

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

#141

Post by JoshTriplett »

fapjacks wrote: post #110
wmeredith wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a pretty nightmarish scenario, and I sympathize with your friend. However, it does nothing to convince me that most laws are used for evil.

I firmly believe that laws provide psychological boundaries for most people (in that I believe most people are neutral good, lawful good or neutral evil), and provide tools for some to abuse others (the lawful evil). Given a perfect distribution, or even a bell curve, I think yes, most uses of law are not used for evil purposes. But there is a significant segment of the spectrum that does. Of course, in my purely ane…

In my opinion, far too many people are lawful neutral, and far too few are neutral good.

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

#142

Post by walterbell »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #140
stinkytaco wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The music industry would love it if you had to pay for music multiple times, but you can nonetheless rip your own CDs. Or vinyl records with the right equipment. You can, but it's not legal, at least not in the United States. It's never really been litigated, but a reading of law would seem to say it's not legal. There's no "personal use" or "personal backup" clause in the law. It's a copy, and copying is not OK out…

Recording a film from TV is copying as well, but that was litigated all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled that it was legal. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Corp._of_America_v._Unive... . , AKA "Sony v. Betamax". That seems like a fairly clear precedent. Also see Sony v. Connectix for a somewhat related case regarding emulation and BIOSes. In that case, Connectix obtained copies of Sony's BIOS as part…

> It's distribution that copyright should cover.

Until the TPP takes effect around 2019.

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

#143

Post by pron »

stdgy wrote: post #108
pron wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Would this apply to REST APIs too? I wouldn't think so. REST APIs are just called APIs, but they're really communication protocols. As those don't have a fixed description (i.e. you can describe the same protocol in different words) -- unlike APIs -- they are not copyrightable. For good or bad, APIs aren't just a description of how to do something. They are fixed. If you write down how files should be organized in…

Perhaps I am missing your point, but aren't all APIs simply definitions that describe how to communicate to an underlying system? An API, by itself (By definition of being an interface), does nothing. It's just a description of how one would ask the system to perform some function. It may be written in a way such that it describes what the system will do to produce a result. But that's merely descriptive, not functio…

> aren't all APIs simply definitions

Isn't all text simply a description of something? But what can be copyrighted isn't the something, nor is it any description, but that particular text. A REST protocol isn't a specific text while an API is.

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

#144

Post by pron »

harshreality wrote: post #86
pron wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Would this apply to REST APIs too? I wouldn't think so. REST APIs are just called APIs, but they're really communication protocols. As those don't have a fixed description (i.e. you can describe the same protocol in different words) -- unlike APIs -- they are not copyrightable. For good or bad, APIs aren't just a description of how to do something. They are fixed. If you write down how files should be organized in…

As far as I can tell, the fixed form of an API has only two purposes/aspects: First, naming. The naming of things allows them to be used by programmers. You could replace every unique identifier with a random dictionary word and the API would still work, although nobody would want to use it. Second, structure(/sequence/organization). The structure could be transformed arbitrarily with the constraint that the operatio…

> Not everything that is fixed is copyrightable.

Right, but something that is not fixed -- like a REST protocol (aka "API"), which could be described by many different texts -- is not copyrightable even if APIs are. Being fixed isn't a sufficient condition, but it is a necessary one.

I'm not saying APIs should be copyrightable, just that their copyrightability (if they have it) doesn't transfer to REST protocols.

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

#145

Post by pron »

BHSPitMonkey wrote: post #102
pron wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Would this apply to REST APIs too? I wouldn't think so. REST APIs are just called APIs, but they're really communication protocols. As those don't have a fixed description (i.e. you can describe the same protocol in different words) -- unlike APIs -- they are not copyrightable. For good or bad, APIs aren't just a description of how to do something. They are fixed. If you write down how files should be organized in…

I think you're describing the client side of the API. A way of looking at REST APIs in the context of this Oracle case would be to imagine a Stripe clone appearing with an identical API to Stripe's, to the point of being interoperable with existing Stripe client code/libraries. Could Stripe claim copyright over the way their API is designed in this situation? If Oracle gets its way, then perhaps.

> Could Stripe claim copyright over the way their API is designed in this situation?

Oracle isn't trying to copyright the way their API is designed. They're trying to copyright the API. A REST protocol, unlike an API, isn't a text (or any fixed work). What isn't fixed can't be copyrighted, but it could possibly be patented (a way of doing something may be patented).

You can't copyright an idea, but you can copyright a text (or a photo, a video, or a recording). An API is a text; Stripe's protocol (or "API") isn't (though Stripe's specific documentation page describing their protocol is probably copyrighted).

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

#146

Post by fian »

So, if the Supreme Court rules that APIs are copyrightable, then wouldn't that mean that someone could use AWS with some, for example, Java code generation tools that created classes with method names comprised of randomly selected words from a dictionary - effectively performing a "million monkeys with a million typewriters" attack on the entire possible API naming space?

Publish the generated code on Github. Early on, you would need to test the generated code against publicly published APIs to ensure you didn't publish code infringing on existing APIs, however, over time you could "own" the remaining API naming space.

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

#147

Post by mcintyre1994 »

josho wrote: post #100
briantmaurer wrote: post #43

Programming is in this odd position somewhere between the structure of math and the creativity of writing. Some things feel as obvious as basic addition, which clearly should not be copyrightable, while other things feel as clever as complex poems, which clearly should be copyrightable. I am not a copyright expert, but in my opinion APIs usually fall closer to the structured math half of programming. ex. GET, POST, P…

When I lived in Java based environments I would have agreed with you. But, having moved on and seen C#, Ruby/Rails, Objective-C, etc. Seeing how differently APIs have been implemented I have an appreciation for the creativity possible in API design. But, there seems to be a balance, is the API of a single class copyrightable? No, probably not. Is the API of a large system like Java's copyrightable, I really do think…

I'm not hugely aware of the intel/AMD history but as I understand AMD invented x64 and license it to Intel? That's probably over simplified, but the point potentially stands : if such a ruling applied for Intel over x86 would we expect a similar one for AMD over x64?

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

#148

Post by VaidasC »

I don't follow this too much, so might be talking nonsense, however I don't understand where all this fuss is coming from.

From the start of this I interpreted situation this way - Java's goal was "run everywhere" (wherever it succeeded or not is for everyone to decide, but its irrelevant here). Java JDK follows this goal with main license requirement - you can implement your own SDK, but you should take all APIs, not part of it - all or nothing deal. Goal being that programs from main JDK should run on your new SDK.

This principle was violated by Google and I just don't see why anyone would support Google side from rational point of view (not talking about morality, innovation or whatever).

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

#149

Post by laumars »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #117
laumars wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

ethics != law

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

#150

Post by VaidasC »

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 don't understand this panic in people minds.

Java is free to develop with.

Java APIs can be copied and used, with one condition - all APIs from JDK should be used and nothing can be removed. Google failed to comply with this.

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