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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

#161

Post by pron »

stdgy wrote: post #159
pron wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

All text is a description of something, but not all text is copyrightable. I would hold that an API is a textual definition of processes used to interact with a system. I don't think that kind of rote technical description is covered by copyright. I guess I'm confused over what you refer to when you say REST protocol. I'm imagining a textual description of endpoints, arguments and expected return types. Just technica…

I didn't say all text was copyrightable; I said anything that isn't text -- or any other fixed form -- isn't. A REST protocol (i.e. a REST API) doesn't have a fixed form. You can describe the very same protocol using many different texts (i.e. documentation) -- something which you cannot do for an actual API, which is text. While each of those documentation texts may be copyrightable in itself (technical documentation is very much copyrightable), the REST protocol itself isn't. It is only a mechanism, whereas an API is indeed a mechanism, but it is also a text. Since it is a text, it might be copyrightable, and since a REST protocol isn't a fixed text -- it is certainly not.

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

#162

Post by prahladyeri »

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.

Java is as much an Oracle product, as water is an Aquafina product or space is a NASA product. So, no, Java has gained enough ubiquity and popularity now so that no one company can monopolize it.

Many open source implementations of Java already exist like Apache Harmony project, the OpenJDK or Red Hat's Iced Tea apart from Oracle's reference implementation.

Coming to the point of there being plenty of languages, I don't think there are any exact substitutes. Low level languages like C/C++ are a bit overkill for application development.

Python is good (I'm a big fan myself), but an interpreter is much slower than a JIT compiled language even on a quad-core. I think we should have python as an option, but that should not be the only language.

The only real replacement (and even a better one) in my opinion is C#. C# is a much evolved language than Java and is also open source (Microsoft has made it so through the MCP).

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

#163

Post by mukyu »

stinkytaco wrote: post #128
JoshTriplett wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the same way that the music industry would argue you can't upgrade all your vinyl records to mp3 without paying again. 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.

>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…

No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings. [0]

In fact, the Rio's operation is entirely consistent with the Act's main purpose – the facilitation of personal use. As the Senate Report explains, "[t]he purpose of [the Act] is to ensure the right of consumers to make analog or digital audio recordings of copyrighted music for their private, noncommercial use." S. Rep. 102-294, at 86 (emphasis added). The Act does so through its home taping exemption, see 17 U.S.C. S 1008, which "protects all noncommercial copying by consumers of digital and analog musical recordings, " H.R. Rep. 102-873(I), at 59. The Rio merely makes copies in order to render portable, or "space-shift", those files that already reside on a user's hard drive. Cf. Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, 464 U.S. 417, 455 (1984) (holding that "time-shifting" of copyrighted television shows with VCR's constitutes fair use under the Copyright Act, and thus is not an infringement). Such copying is paradigmatic non-commercial personal use entirely consistent with the purposes of the Act. [1]

[0] 17 U.S. Code § 1008 Prohibition on certain infringement actions

[1] 180 F.3d 1072. 1078-1079. 51 U.S.P.Q.2d (BNA) 1115 (9th Cir. 1999)

So the law does specifically say that making digital copies of music for non-commercial use is ok and it has been reviewed by the judiciary (to some extent).

There is also 17 U.S. Code § 117 which allows backup copies or computer programs "that such new copy or adaptation is for archival purposes only and that all archival copies are destroyed in the event that continued possession of the computer program should cease to be rightful".

You can still get yourself in trouble related to the DMCA depending on what you are doing, but all of your assertions are false.

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

#164

Post by throwawaykf05 »

btilly wrote: post #155
throwawaykf05 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* In this conflict, Oracle wants copyright to cover more things. Google wants it to only cover what it has historically covered. * This is incorrect. By most reasonable readings of copyright law, API's have always been covered by copyright, unless deny that API design holds any modicum of creative expression. So it's more Google that's trying to reduce the scope of what's protected rather than Oracle trying to expand…

We can argue what readings are reasonable until the cows come home. But most lawyers had thought this area of copyright law settled. Creative expression is copyrighted. Functional expression is not. In cases like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_v._Accolade , use of copyrighted material where necessary for functional interoperability has been ruled fair use. See http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=132…

I am somewhat familiar with the history of these cases, and I would disagree that most lawyers thought it settled because this case is subtly but significantly different. The Sega etc. cases were about binary interoperability, which I'd agree is well-settled law. The thing that most of us programmers get confused about is, APIs are for humans to design systems that interoperate with other systems. They are not necessary for binary interoperability, at least for Java.

To understand what I mean consider this: You can design an API for file handling that looks nothing like the Java API and yet compiles down to exactly the same JVM bytecode. Case in point: Jython and JRuby. It is the byte code level interfaces that cannot be copyrighted because they are purely functional. The human readable Java API on the other hand are just one form of expression of that underlying functionality.

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

#165

Post by stinkytaco »

mukyu wrote: post #163
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…

No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings. [0] In fact, th…

That case specifically stated that the Rio was not covered under the AHRA because the AHRA covered copying to analog media and digital media specifically meant for copying. It implies that "space shifting" is fair use, but it's also pretty clear that fair use is not what's being litigated. That language is interesting, but tangential. Until an actual consumer who is copying their music is sued, we just don't know.

I still maintain that where both Universal v. Sony and RIAA v. Diamond are persuasive, the facts are not enough to bind a future court. Ripping CDs may be fair use, but there's not enough legal precedent to say for sure.

And p. 117 doesn't really apply here because the copy is not for archival purposes, it's for use in an emulator. That is not "archival".

As I said, I'm playing devil's advocate here, I don't necessarily disagree with your argument, but I do firmly feel there is a great deal of legal uncertainty in this area.

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