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Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]

supremecourt.gov

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Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]

#891

> "Google copied approximately 11,500 lines of declaring code from the API, which amounts to virtually all the declaring code needed to call up hundreds of different tasks. Those 11,500 lines, however, are only 0.4 percent of the entire API at issue, which consists of 2.86 million total lines. In considering “the amount and substantiality of the portion used” in this case, the 11,500 lines of code should be viewed as…

It is fascinating that code is now being measured quantitatively. Number of "lines of code".

LoC is an old and classic software size metric. It's not perfect, but not completely useless either.

Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]

#892
post #70

While the result is a big relief, I think it's not as decisive as I'm noticing some headlines (and commenters) are claiming. One of the big open questions is "are APIs copyrightable?" The court skirted that question, and instead focused on whether it was fair use: > To decide no more than is necessary to resolve this case, the Court assumes for argument’s sake that the copied lines can be copyrighted, and focuses on…

Always seemed crazy to me that interoperability was ever in doubt. Copyright in a private, internal API seems reasonable in principle. RIP kotlin-first on android?

Kotlin never fixed anything on this area, beacause it is a guest language for the JVM, and the whole Android tooling depends on Java and JVM, ART only runs on the devices.

So to be fully Java/JVM free with Kotlin-first, Google and JetBrains would need to re-write the Android world to run on ART or Kotlin/Native, including anything that might come from Maven central.

Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]

#893
Regardless of how you feel about the legal question, if you read the whole thing, it’s interesting to see how much the justices differ with regards to their respective grasps of the technical and business issues. In particular Thomas’s dissent includes many very relevant business and technical facts that Breyer’s opinion doesn’t even mention. For example Java SE vs Java Micro Edition, advertising business model vs licensing model, the inherent creativity of designing an API, Apple and Microsoft’s competing products, etc.

Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]

#894

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cipyright law needed reform for like 40 years. Thre is slow, and there is dysfunctional

Copyright law has received many reforms over the last 40 years. It may not have received the particular reforms you want, but that’s a very different issue.

It doesnt matter what I want, it has not addressed the issues that need to be adressed, in either way.

Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]

#895

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lotus' failure was more because they failed to port to Windows, betting instead on OS/2. Lotus was at a crossroads. DOS was obsolete, was the future OS/2 or Windows? They chose OS/2. Lotus was a big, cash rich company at the time. Their fatal error was not realizing they should have ported 1-2-3 to both OS/2 and Windows. Then they would have been secure regardless of which prevailed.

At that point(1989), the future was less clear-cut than Windows vs OS2. Windows was more a graphical shell for DOS than a real OS, and there were other graphical shells for DOS. From the top of my head: I vaguely remember GEM, I have used one from Tandy. There was something else installed on our school computers, Dynamic Environment or something . Windows before 3.0 (1990) was inferior to a lot of these DOS shells. I…

You may be thinking of DesqView? It provided some level of virtualisation and multi-tasking, if you had a competent-enough CPU. Eventually, there was also DesqView/X which allowed you to export DOS and DesqView-aware applications over X11, which was actually kind of cool.

Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]

#896
I found this description of an API surprisingly good compared to earlier courts. It's not quite literally true, but it makes sense.

> The copied lines of code are part of a “user interface” that provides a way for programmers to access prewritten computer code through the use of simple commands. As a result, this code is different from many other types of code, such as the code that actually instructs the computer to execute a task

> As part of an interface, the copied lines are inherently bound together with uncopyrightable ideas (the overall organization of the API) and the creation of new creative expression (the code independently written by Google). Unlike many other computer programs, the value of the copied lines is in significant part derived from the investment of users (here computer programmers) who have learned the API’s system.

Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]

#897

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the people that make the OS whose APIs you are reliant on, are also the ones trying to make your code crash, I'd bet most of us would end up with crashing code.

I've never heard of any evidence that Microsoft planted: if (NetscapeIsRunning()) corrupt_data(); in their OS API calls. If they had, I'm sure it would have come out at the anti-trust trial, and would have made it an open and shut case. Did that happen? As I recall, the anti-trust case revolved around Microsoft including IE for free with Windows, not sabotage. (Of course, every OS comes with a free browser these days…

The claim by tinus_hn is that FrontPage - Microsoft's HTML editing tool - created pages that crash Netscape.

While it would arguably be Netscape's fault if Netscape actually crashes (rather than simply failing to display a malformed input) at that time in the browser wars there were plenty of energy going into creating incompatible new 'features' - such as Microsoft's own JavaScript competitor, VBScript [1], vector imaging format (AutoShapes) and animation tags (DHTML)

And Microsoft did intentionally sabotage competitors products in the 1990s with approval from the highest levels of the business - such as DR-DOS [2].

So while I'm not aware of any claims Microsoft sabotaged the OS to make Netscape crash, they'd sabotaged the OS to make other competing products crash, and they certainly added a lot of 'features' so web pages wouldn't render right on Netscape.

[1] http://www.gbengasesan.com/fyp/43/ch5.htm [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code

Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]

#898
For me, the problem here is that there is no logically consistent way to rule in favor of Google without undermining the concept of software copyright itself. APIs are creative expression: at a basic level, it is possible to change the names, the order, and to some extent the type of parameters and achieve the same result. It is also possible to change the structure of the API itself at a large scale in such a way that the programmer still can do what the API purports to provide, in a completely different way. Therefore, if one were to call APIs merely functional "declaring code" that cannot be copyrighted, then that would put all software code at risk of being called such. The idea that, say, a certain algorithm can be expressed in many different ways lies at the heart of how we justify making such expressions copyrightable.

With this ruling, either software will be found to be entirely (or mostly) uncopyrightable, which is unlikely, or software copyright will turn into an even bigger legal morass that requires a team of top-tier lawyers just to understand which parts of your software are effectively copyrightable (or potentially infringing) and which aren't.

The Supreme Court should have found in favor of Oracle, and told Google to bring their case before Congress if they're so worried that API copyrightability would destroy the industry.

Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]

#899

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sure, just as nothing is stopping you from walking into a store, taking something, and walking out without paying. Well, there is. If you get caught you get to jail. Whereas if you get "caught" saying this generated melody is your melody, nothing happens. It's a totally valid thing to copyright. (And even if it wasn't, unlike the store theft case, there's no way for anybody to tell and prove it's not yours anyway).…

> There's no rule "you can't copyright a generated melody". If that was so, then no more melodies can be copyrighted after that group that was also mentioned somewhere else in the threads generated (essentially) all melodies, claimed copyright and then released them into the public domain. Alas, there is, even with people claiming copyright on individual generated melodies! Again, I think the curation is relevant. Yo…

>If that was so, then no more melodies can be copyrighted after that group that was also mentioned somewhere else in the threads generated (essentially) all melodies, claimed copyright and then released them into the public domain.

Well, that's true.

But

(a) nobody is going to cross-check their melodies against a new copyright claim,

(b) they are not going to claim infrigement against anyone,

So there's that. And even if they did, they'd be thrown out as a joke-submission (the content being "all possible melodies" etc).

But you can submit hundreds of generated melodies, copyright them, and succesfully sue people for infringing of them. The fact that they were generated doesn't change anything.

Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]

#900
post #703

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He really doesn, he and Scalia were the reliable crazy uncles of the court. Looks like Alito is trying to take up Scalia's mantle. I sear to god if Thomas had to rule on a runaway slave he'd rule for the slaveholder.

I don't agree with this. I _hated_ Scalia while he was on the bench. I fundamentally disagreed with him on a significant amount of his opinions. Their actual opinions though are of such a different quality to me. Scalia's opinions I could absolutely follow the logic, and at times I found myself sometimes dispairing as I became convinced he might be right on an issue. Essentially, Scalia's logic usually felt on point…

++ I almost always disagreed with Scalia, but he was a master legal mind in his written opinions. Like, they're not even comparable to Thomas or Kavanaugh, IMO.
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