If anyone is interested in hearing:
https://www.c-span.org/video/?469263-1/google-v-oracle-ameri...
Google and Oracle's decade-long copyright battle reaches Supreme Court
161–170 of 433 posts
Re: Google and Oracle's decade-long copyright battle reaches Supreme Court
#162>This is a complete dramatization. Are you copying 10k lines of code from a licensed code base into your project without permission and using it in your commercial product? To point back to the substance of the thread and Oracle's claims... Google didn't copy any of Oracle/Sun's Java source code base into Android Java. Oracle lawyers acknowledge this. Instead, Google copied the API of function name spellings and also…
Oracle proposes a change for the sake of uniqueness, but uniqueness is not copyrightable. And if non-copyrightable change is all you can reasonably do, then there's little if any room for creativity. Also it's obvious `max` is not a creative, but a traditional name for such function, not to mention one can't copyright a common word in wide use.
There's no technical way to not copy the interface, especially method names, and imagine what happens when you implement an interface: it's copied verbatim.
Re: Google and Oracle's decade-long copyright battle reaches Supreme Court
#163If Google paid some reasonable sum to SUN for using Java in Android, they could have avoided all of this. I bet their lawsuit expenses are now higher.
Having been across the table from Sun licensing people when using an open source Java in a project, "some reasonable sum" is optimistic. In fact any transparency about what sum they might demand is optimistic.
AFAIK they were pretty open to some reasonable sum as they were internally fans of Google, but due to Google's arrogance the upper management relationship with them soured, then opportunistic Oracle bought them and here we are.
Re: Google and Oracle's decade-long copyright battle reaches Supreme Court
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think it would be infringement. The main difference between WINE and Android is where the interoperability integration points are. WINE is using the Windows names for the purposes of allowing Windows programs to run. This is a case where a judge would easily grant fair-use because you have to use the API surface area to provide compatibility for existing programs. Android is using the Java names for the purpo…
You are making a distinction when there isn't one from the legal opinion perspective.
There is actually, and the court argued as such: if Android had been compatible with Java programs, Google could have claimed a fair-use exemption. Since Android can't run many Java programs, by design, they can't claim such an exemption.
WINE could very likely win a legal battle through claiming a fair-use exemption (of course, if the case fails, they wouldn't have to go to court at all).
Re: Google and Oracle's decade-long copyright battle reaches Supreme Court
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or it will create api compatibility layers (shims).
Wouldn't the compatibility layer be infringing copyright?
No, it isn't providing api, merely using api (but providing it's own api). If using an api was copyrightable, our civilzation would collapse.
Re: Google and Oracle's decade-long copyright battle reaches Supreme Court
#166>This is a complete dramatization. Are you copying 10k lines of code from a licensed code base into your project without permission and using it in your commercial product? To point back to the substance of the thread and Oracle's claims... Google didn't copy any of Oracle/Sun's Java source code base into Android Java. Oracle lawyers acknowledge this. Instead, Google copied the API of function name spellings and also…
I wonder how a meaningful discussion about namespace trees and API spelling takes place at the Supreme Court considering the background of the justices.
Do you wonder the same for an abortion hearing or a sanitation case? The court system can and must decide regulations on many things they are not personally experts in, and usually does so quite successfully.
Re: Google and Oracle's decade-long copyright battle reaches Supreme Court
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is where I think a lot of people are talking past this case. If you use the API surface area for the purposes of interoperability with existing software then you're covered and it's not infringement. If you use the API surface area for your own software because you like the design, copying it is easier than coming up with something new, or you want to provide a familiar programming environment to developers then…
> If you use the API surface area for the purposes of interoperability with existing software then you're covered and it's not infringement. Google did that: for compatibility with existing Java tooling, which is software. Sure, Java apps aren't, unmodified, compatible with Android, but the compatibility makes tooling and intermediate libraries compatible, which is a functional, interoperability concern.
Google tried to argue for fair use under the idea of interoperability, but the (few) intentional differences from Java that prevent most Java programs from running unmodified on Android pretty much bombed that case...
Re: Google and Oracle's decade-long copyright battle reaches Supreme Court
#168Why does Oracle care so much about Android in the first place? Does it even make any money for Google?
Re: Google and Oracle's decade-long copyright battle reaches Supreme Court
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google is making this case, we'll see if the judges buy it. Just because porting Java apps to Android is easier because Google copied the API doesn't suddenly absolve them when it's Google's intention that will decide this case.
> when it's Google's intention that will decide this case. Why do you presuppose to know the legal rule that the Supreme Court will articulate in its decision? I mean, you seem to presuppose that the Court will uphold the Federal Circuit on all contested questions of law and only reconsider whether the decision on the facts is reasonable, which is...mighty presumptuous. It's quite conceivable that Google could win on…
That seems to be what a lot of legal folks are speculating. That an 8-person court will find essentially technical legal reasons to overturn the appeal and essentially punt on making a major copyright ruling one way or the other.
Re: Google and Oracle's decade-long copyright battle reaches Supreme Court
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
>If you copy an API but change the words using a thesaurus you are still copying it so it would still be infringement. From the previous thread I referred to, a commenter cited an excerpt from a circuit court opinion about alternative naming : [...] Using the district court's "java.lang.Math.max" example, Oracle explains that the developers could have called it any number of things, including "Math.maximum" or "Arith…
If I take a book, say Harry Potter, and use a thesaurus to change words to their synonyms in the hopes of avoiding copyright, no court is going to agree that I can now publish Barry Otter and the Association of the Eagle as my own creation.
Hirsute Jugmaker, and the...