This will be great for developing nations.
Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]
171–180 of 965 posts
Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]
#172From the dissent: "In the 1990s, Oracle created a programming language called Java..." Sun Microsystems was acquired in 2010... I guess I should give Thomas the benefit of the doubt that he intended the statement to apply to Oracle's owned IP & not be a historical account of the language's creation and creators, but this rubbed me the wrong way.
I mean, Android was acquired by Google as well.
Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you copyright generated things? You probably could copyright the way you're generating it, but I doubt you have a legal standing about the generated text or melody itself.
I am not a lawyer, but I don't see why not. Have you ever used code generation as part of software you have built? Is there any reason why generated code could not be copyrighted as part of a larger system? For example, suppose I define a data model for a public-facing API and then generate SDKs in various popular programming languages to interact with the public-facing API. If I were a major corporation that owned s…
> I am not a lawyer, but I don't see why not.
The involvement of actual human creativity is required for a work to be copyrightable.
Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]
#174So does this ruling actually mean anything or can Oracle challenge this too somewhere else?
Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm unfamiliar with the legal system (judicial system?). I had thought that the jury's findings were final. Am I understanding correctly that the case still went to the Supreme Court of the US, and now that court finds in favor of Google. What happens after this, more appeals or is this like a proper static const readonly final?
In the US, the Supreme Court is the static const readonly final. It's over. There is literally no route of appeal or any way Oracle can keep this case going without a whole new lawsuit. The Supreme Court can elect to make a ruling and then send it back to a smaller court _if they choose_ for final assessment, but they did not do that here, making this ruling definitive.
Well, more precisely: they definitively ruled that (a) a judge can decide whether a use is fair use and (b that this is fair use. Then they remanded the case to lower courts to decide what that means in terms of what happens next in this case.
Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]
#176Which of Breyer's clerks drafted this? They clearly understand many tech issues and I hope they find their place on some Federal circuit to herald an era of logic in tech law. "Google’s limited copying of the API is a transformative use. Google copied only what was needed to allow programmers to work in a different computing environment without discarding a portion of a familiar programming language. Google’s purpose…
UPDATE: based on Wikipedia [1], the "API" was likely saved by one of these people (all likely in their mid-20s!): Emily Barnet, 2020, Yale (2015) Diana Li Kim, 2020, Yale (2017) Arjun Ramamurti, 2020, Yale (2018) Daniel Richardson, 2020, Virginia (2018) Brittany Jones-Record, 2020, Stanford (2016) David Scott Louk, 2020, Yale (2015) Elizabeth B. Deutsch, 2021, Yale (2016) Joel F. Wacks, 2021, Chicago (2018) [1] https…
A supreme court clerkship is very impressive, but "saved by one of these people" is strong. My understanding is the justices have a conference, stake out their positions, and then the chief assigns cases based on who can attract a majority to their opinion. So Breyer presumably had a rationale that could get at least 4 concurrences in conference. It's possible for the other justices to later change their minds based on the actual opinion the chambers produce, but that doesn't seem to be the case here. It's also possible the case was just assigned based on workload, considering the 6-2 split, almost anyone could have written it.
In other words, the clerks do the work of researching and fleshing out the finished opinion, but I don't think they have much influence on the rationale used to decide the case. I've heard stories of clerks having to write opinions they personally disagreed with.
Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]
#177Had the ruling gone in Oracle's favor I can imagine some greedy company trying to procedurally-generate every API and copyright them all similar to this project which tried to copyright all musical melodies: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/ne... In the case of the music project, it was for the protection of the community, but I can imagine such a system being used selfishly for software APIs…
Can you copyright generated things? You probably could copyright the way you're generating it, but I doubt you have a legal standing about the generated text or melody itself.
Sometimes I fantasize about generating methods for creating copyrights, such that you can copyright the process of creating the copyright - for the commmunity, obviously. However, they explicitly forbid that, unfortunately. If only it worked, you could file a claim for anyone that created a copyright to your disliking, given that you probably make strong stance.
While I'm at it, in a similar vein though entirely unrelated, i sometimes think of ways to create jurisprudence in your favor: You try to emulate a situation to your disliking - e.g. aggresive data hoarding - and file suit to yourself, try to argue the arguments that your target would probably file, but just crappy enough that you actually lose. Do this often and stealthy enough and voila, you might have generated enough jurisprudence to actually file your final claim based on your previous "lost" lawsuits. I do think that this actually does happen at times, though.
Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]
#178It's interesting reading Thomas' dissent. As per typical Thomas appears to be arguing that it's the letter of the law that matters, whereas it's the majority opinion that the motivations and substance of the law are primary. Hackers and programmers tend to try and read the law like computer code to be "hacked" and exploited based on the letter of the law. So you'd expect us to be more sympathetic to Thomas' view. So…
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 far better job making their intent clear. But to the degree they make mistakes, leaving the intent unclear in some situation, it's good to have Case Law to inform us.
I am not a lawyer. I don't know much about the law. But I do know metaphors, and when someone talks about exploiting the law, this is what comes to my mind.
Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]
#179Had the ruling gone in Oracle's favor I can imagine some greedy company trying to procedurally-generate every API and copyright them all similar to this project which tried to copyright all musical melodies: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/ne... In the case of the music project, it was for the protection of the community, but I can imagine such a system being used selfishly for software APIs…
Can you copyright generated things? You probably could copyright the way you're generating it, but I doubt you have a legal standing about the generated text or melody itself.
My understanding is no. Copyright requires human authorship (the case of the monkey selfie found it to be public domain because a monkey did it, e.g.), and code written by a machine is likely to follow similar precedent and be uncopyrightable.
Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
The copyrightable part of them is the creative decision making used to organize the workings of the function itself, not the formulas. Two functions could have identical algorithmic performance, but be stylistically and semantically different, have been written independently, and neither would infringe on the copyright of the other.
An API design is also a creative and highly stylistic work. Anyone who has ever designed a large API, or suffered a poorly designed one, can attest to that. A bad design can work just as well as a good design. Also, you are distorting the argument by making it about one method signature instead of thousands of interconnected types and methods that work together to present an ergonomic interface for the developer.
The quality of good/bad or ergonomic is insufficient to meet the threshold for copyright protection.
A table of baseball batting averages or telephone numbers is not copyrightable, no matter how good or bad it is organized.