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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]

#931

Post by dragonwriter »

btilly wrote: post #652
azernik wrote: post #644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the absence of a ruling from the Supreme Court, the previous ruling from the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is binding precedent on the whole country that APIs are copyrightable. This is not true - other circuit courts are free to set their own, conflicting precedent. Each circuit's decisions are binding only on its own judges, and suggestive but not binding on other circuits. Circuits deciding differe…

For most circuits what you say would be true. But the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is special. As http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/the-court/court-jurisdiction says, their jurisdiction is national and determined by subject matter. That said I do not actually know whether they would be binding on another circuit court. But they are definitely binding on all federal courts lower than that. However that question…

> their jurisdiction is national and determined by subject matter.

Copyright is not part of their subject matter jurisdiction.

> However that question is sort of moot. It is extremely easy for the entity filing the case for infringement to include something about patent or trademark in the suit, which guarantees that you wind up in the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Where that ruling is binding.

It’s not, though; outside of its own subject matter jurisdiction, CAFC is bound by the law of the Circuit to which the trial court belongs, which it, in theory, merely applies. Another case coming up through the Northern District of California like Oracle v. Google did would be governed vy Ninth Circuit, not Federal Circuit, copyright precedent even if heard in the Federal Circuit because of other issues in the case.

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

#932

Post by dragonwriter »

Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #875
jxf wrote: 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…

Not from U.S. Would the discussions, consultations between the judges and the independent subject matter experts be published? Surely there must have been such extensive discussions right? Or is the judgement based upon the subject matter experts presented as witness from both sides themselves? I'm intrigued by how judgements are passed in such intricate technical matters.

> Would the discussions, consultations between the judges and the independent subject matter experts be published?

No such consultation exists.

> Or is the judgement based upon the subject matter experts presented as witness from both sides themselves?

Since this was a decision as a matter of law, and not one turning on disputed facts (the Supreme Court can decide cases on either basis), the judges are the relevant subject matter experts.

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

#933

Post by ifore »

fnordprefect wrote: post #628
jxf wrote: 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…

One of the big open questions is "are APIs copyrightable?" The Australian equivalent to the US Supreme Court considered this over 20 years ago, and imho got the correct result (not copyrightable): http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/HCA/1... IMHO they got the Huffman table wrong, although arguably it was the result compelled by an overprotective approach.

It seems that it was somewhat inevitable given the US vs Australian distinction on whether to protect Creativity vs Effort (years ago I investigated this rabbit hole when I had a client who wanted to set up a White Pages clone site by buying the data from someone who had digitised it [with a lot of manual entry!] by low-paid Indians. They were very disappointed when I told them to contact an IP lawyer because it was almost certainly going to get them sued)

I did cry a little at the court's assertion creating the huffman table required "a very great deal of hard work". Gather a corpus of databases you have lying around, count the occurrences of each byte value and apply a Presumably division 4A / s47D would now allow the cloning of the data table if decided today -- are you aware of any post-1999 case law?

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

#934

Post by pdonis »

dragonwriter wrote: post #930
colejohnson66 wrote: post #906

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The thing is that fair use implies the underlying data was copyrighted, but something being copyrighted doesn't imply fair use, which is why I think your analysis is backwards. For those who may not understand: in the US, fair use is a defense , not a right. By arguing that your usage was fair use, you are admitting to copyright infringement. Just that your infringement was fair use. The analogy above to self defen…

> By arguing that your usage was fair use, you are admitting to copyright infringement. No, its actually fairly common to argue both that an act wasn’t infringement but, if it was, it would be fair use. One way you might do this is to argue that the thing copied was outside the scope of copyright, bur then argue that, if it was covered by copyright, it would be fair use. That was, in fact, Google’s argument in this v…

Your honor, I will show that (1) my client never received the Ming vase from the plaintiff, (2) he returned it in perfect condition, and (3) it was already cracked when he got it.

I agree such arguments are fairly common, but that doesn't make them any less fishy, in my view.

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

#935

Post by TeaVMFan »

I feel conflicted about this decision. I've added some analysis here:

https://frequal.com/java/SupremeCourtOracleVsGoogleRuling202...

focusing on two areas: * Google had the ability to make their own language and APIs for Android * The chilling effect on future language/API innovation

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

#936

Post by burnte »

ncallaway wrote: post #880
burnte wrote: 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 agree Scalia wrote very tight opinions, but his personal biases were in such intense conflict with the actual constitution that the internal consistency just dosn't make it fly for me. But I see your point.

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

#937

Post by dragonwriter »

smokey_circles wrote: post #883
jxf wrote: 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…

>The court skirted that question, and instead focused on whether it was fair use Because the federal courts already ruled that APIs are eligible for copyright [0]. Google wanted to overturn the ruling that they were in violation of copyright and argued they used Java's APIs fairly under copyright law. The court will not answer questions not put to it, and Google (I presume) felt they had a better shot at getting the…

> The court will not answer questions not put to it, and Google (I presume) felt they had a better shot at getting the court to agree it was fair usage, rather than arguing copyright should not apply here.

This is false; Google appealed on both copyrightability and fair use, and the Supreme Court agreed to hear both issues.

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

#938

Post by sn_master »

MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #859
sn_master wrote: post #602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem was, code written for J++ wouldn't run on "regular" Java outside of Windows, effectively killing the cross-platform aspect of Java and turning it into another Visual Basic.

that's what i meant: by naming it a windows jdk they would not imply to be cross platform. they could then argue that they implemented the same sdk for their platform only. (interesting if Oracle tried to argue that the same logic should apply in this case too).

To be fair, Java isn't and arguable was never a true cross-platform language that the media used to portray it as.

Any non-trivial app always needed a lot of platform-specific code and API calls to get that native look and feel.

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

#939

Post by dragonwriter »

bonzini wrote: post #645
guscost wrote: post #597

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That is truly a nightmare scenario. Absolutely, but courts are supposed to interpret the law, not rule whichever way avoids nightmare scenarios. The risk of going too far in that direction (and this is by no means the first case in which SCOTUS c̶l̶e̶a̶r̶l̶y̶ may have rationalized a decision for pragmatic reasons) is that it makes the court more corruptible. I am glad the majority ruled this way, because I agree th…

> courts are supposed to interpret the law The law also states that copyright's purpose is to stimulate progress of the arts, and that's why fair use is possible. Interpreting the law also means establishing the limits of fair use.

No, fair use is possible because of the First Amendment. While it is now adopted in statute, the statute was codifying a Constitutional limit that courts previously found in copyright protection grounded in the First Amendment, not the Copyright Clause.

But, still, yes, determining the scope and applicability of fair use is part of applying the law.

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

#940

Post by kmeisthax »

btilly wrote: post #647
jxf wrote: 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…

While the result is a big relief, I think it's not as decisive as I'm noticing some headlines (and commenters) are claiming. It is even less decisive than you're saying. The fact that the Supreme Court decided not to overturn the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that APIs are copyrightable means that binding precedent on every court except the Supreme is that they are. And for fair use, one of…

I should point out that in the Ninth Circuit, there's already plenty of strong, citeable precedent in favor of fair use for the purpose of interoperability; separate from the purpose of programmer convenience that the Supreme Court endorsed. It's my opinion that programmer convenience is strictly wider than interoperability. The only reason why SCOTUS needed to rule this way is:

1. Google did not copy Java APIs strictly for the purpose of interoperability (they specifically did not want interoperability with other Java environments).

2. Ninth Circuit court precedent does not apply in the Federal Circuit, which is the only reason why Oracle even had a leg to stand on.

Had Oracle not had a patent claim in this lawsuit, it would have wound up in the Ninth Circuit, we would have gotten another respectable decision limiting software copyright from that court, and the only thing SCOTUS would have had to have done would have been to deny cert to Oracle after they lost. It's entirely due to the Federal Circuit not respecting basic concepts of how software works and ruling on something that shouldn't have been in their jurisdiction that we got here.

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