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What does the API ruling mean for the rest of us? If I were to write an ISC licensed clean room implementation of Apple UIKit, would Apple be in the right to b

by cm3 11y ago

What does the API ruling mean for the rest of us? If I were to write an ISC licensed clean room implementation of Apple UIKit, would Apple be in the right to bury me? If Oracle thinks they can ask for 9.3 billion and are likely expecting to get 1 or 2, it sounds scary. But I hope this will lead to more and more open APIs without a single entity holding the keys and people being very scared to use closed and copyrighted APIs. If less people use it, its importance will equally be diminishing. That's the hope.

dsp1234 11y ago
If I were to write an ISC licensed clean room implementation of Apple UIKit, would Apple be in the right to bury me? "The appeals court reversed the district court on the central issue, holding that the "structure, sequence and organization" of an API was copyrightable"[0] That's pretty clear. Even if you re-implement every function by hand, if you keep the same API, then it can be a copyright infringement. Note that you may still have other defenses such as license agreements, or fair use. But this ruling considers copying API/function declarations the same as actual code. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_America,_Inc._v._Google,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_America,_Inc._v._Google....
- 0x0 11y ago
  How did the original PC clones get away with reverse engineering / re-implementing the IBM BIOS? Or alternatives to MS-DOS like DR-DOS? Is it just that nobody thought to use this attack?
  - debacle 11y ago
    I don't think anyone but Oracle would stoop so low as to use this attack.
    - jhall1468 11y ago
      Give it some time.
    - joe563323 11y ago
      What this means to me is do not use Oracle MSSQL use mariadb https://mariadb.org/ https://mariadb.org/ instead.
      - crpatino 11y ago
        I'd be wary to use the opensource alternative that shares APIs with Oracle's. Postgress sounds like a safer bet to my ears.
  - xigency 11y ago
    In Halt and Catch Fire, the show on AMC, this becomes a plot point for a few episodes in the first season.
  - dsp1234 11y ago
    A little late on the reply... This is a brand new ruling. Indeed, I'm not sure a lot of legal people thought SSO of apis was a copyrightable artifact. Otherwise, it's likely that a lot of stuff wouldn't have been created in the same way (Google's work on dalvik, all of the "aws compatiable api" cloud tools, etc). The key thing here is that even though they ruling is saying that SSO is copyrightable, that still means the normal defenses against copyright infringement are still available (ex: fair use). It also means that re-implementing a clean room compatible implementation of an API could still mean licensing fees, and thus less interoperability. Think about open source software that implements a compatibility layer to interoperate with a closed source API. Just copying that SSO could be infringement, and thus some people are likely going to be less interested in creating that software if there are possible legal repercussions.
tzs 11y ago
> What does the API ruling mean for the rest of us? It's muddled due to the peculiar nature of the appeals path in this case. In a normal copyright case, filed in a court in San Francisco as this case was, here is how things work. 1. A trial is held in a Federal district court. That court looks to the Federal copyright statue (17 USC), the Supreme Court, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (which I will just call 9th Circuit CoA from now on) for the copyright law that the court must follow. 2. If there are any copyright issues that the court cannot resolve using the sources mentioned above, it might also look to decisions of the Courts of Appeals for circuits other than the 9th Circuit, or to academic writings, or actually to anything else that might provide some insight. None of these other sources are binding, though. Only the Supreme Court and the 9th Circuit CoA decisions are binding on a San Francisco Federal district court. 3. The district court reaches a decision, and the losing party appeals. The appeal goes to the 9th Circuit CoA. The 9th Circuit CoA makes a decision. 4. The 9th Circuit COA decision is binding precedent on all future copyright cases heard in district courts in the 9th Circuit. Now compare this to a patent case. Assume it is purely a patent case. As with our hypothetical copyright case, let's assume this patent case is filed in a San Francisco Federal court. Everything is the same as it is with the copyright case except replace "Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit" with "United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit" (CAFC) [1]. Patent case appeals from district courts all go to CAFC regardless of which Circuit the district court is in. Where it gets muddled is when a case is both a patent case and a copyright case. That was the case in Oracle vs. Google. In that situation, the appeal from the district court goes to CAFC, and CAFC rules on both the patent aspects of the appeal and the copyright aspects. However, on the copyright aspects CAFC is supposed to follow the precedents of the appeals court for the Circuit, so in this case they are supposed to follow 9th Circuit CoA copyright precedent...and many legal scholars think they botched this. This is a pretty messed up design because it creates a situation where you have one court (CAFC) interpreting another court's binding precedent (9th Circuit CoA), but there is no path to appeal the decision from the first court to the second court. In every other situation that comes to mind, if one court is supposed to follow the precedent of another court there is a way to have that second court review the first court. CAFC's copyright ruling is binding on the district court in this particular case. It is not binding anywhere else. If, say, Apple and Microsoft got into a tussle over APIs and one sued the other in a district court in the 9th Circuit, that court would still look to what the 9th Circuit CoA has said, not to what CAFC says. CAFC would be just another non-Supreme Court, non-9th Circuit CoA source that the court could consider for insight but is not obligated to follow. So, as long as an API dispute does not also involve patents, the legal status of APIs should be what it was before Oracle vs. Google. That's assuming that you also think that if you end up getting sued it will not involve patents. If it involves patents, and your lawsuit is in the 9th, then you should assume that CAFC will rule consistently with their Oracle ruling at least until an API case makes it to the 9th Circuit CoA and they say something that makes it clear CAFC misunderstood 9th precedent. [1] replace might not be quite correct. The district court in a patent case will look to the Supreme Court and CAFC for precedent, but it might also still look to the appeals court for its Circuit, too, because that court will have heard patent appeals before CAFC was created and some of those might still be precedent in that Circuit.

by cm3 11y ago

dsp1234 11y ago

If I were to write an ISC licensed clean room implementation of Apple UIKit, would Apple be in the right to bury me? "The appeals court reversed the district court on the central issue, holding that the "structure, sequence and organization" of an API was copyrightable"[0] That's pretty clear. Even if you re-implement every function by hand, if you keep the same API, then it can be a copyright infringement. Note that you may still have other defenses such as license agreements, or fair use. But this ruling considers copying API/function declarations the same as actual code. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_America,_Inc._v._Google,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_America,_Inc._v._Google....

0x0 11y ago
How did the original PC clones get away with reverse engineering / re-implementing the IBM BIOS? Or alternatives to MS-DOS like DR-DOS? Is it just that nobody thought to use this attack?
- debacle 11y ago
  I don't think anyone but Oracle would stoop so low as to use this attack.
  - jhall1468 11y ago
    Give it some time.
  - joe563323 11y ago
    What this means to me is do not use Oracle MSSQL use mariadb https://mariadb.org/ https://mariadb.org/ instead.
    - crpatino 11y ago
      I'd be wary to use the opensource alternative that shares APIs with Oracle's. Postgress sounds like a safer bet to my ears.
- xigency 11y ago
  In Halt and Catch Fire, the show on AMC, this becomes a plot point for a few episodes in the first season.
- dsp1234 11y ago
  A little late on the reply... This is a brand new ruling. Indeed, I'm not sure a lot of legal people thought SSO of apis was a copyrightable artifact. Otherwise, it's likely that a lot of stuff wouldn't have been created in the same way (Google's work on dalvik, all of the "aws compatiable api" cloud tools, etc). The key thing here is that even though they ruling is saying that SSO is copyrightable, that still means the normal defenses against copyright infringement are still available (ex: fair use). It also means that re-implementing a clean room compatible implementation of an API could still mean licensing fees, and thus less interoperability. Think about open source software that implements a compatibility layer to interoperate with a closed source API. Just copying that SSO could be infringement, and thus some people are likely going to be less interested in creating that software if there are possible legal repercussions.

tzs 11y ago

> What does the API ruling mean for the rest of us? It's muddled due to the peculiar nature of the appeals path in this case. In a normal copyright case, filed in a court in San Francisco as this case was, here is how things work. 1. A trial is held in a Federal district court. That court looks to the Federal copyright statue (17 USC), the Supreme Court, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (which I will just call 9th Circuit CoA from now on) for the copyright law that the court must follow. 2. If there are any copyright issues that the court cannot resolve using the sources mentioned above, it might also look to decisions of the Courts of Appeals for circuits other than the 9th Circuit, or to academic writings, or actually to anything else that might provide some insight. None of these other sources are binding, though. Only the Supreme Court and the 9th Circuit CoA decisions are binding on a San Francisco Federal district court. 3. The district court reaches a decision, and the losing party appeals. The appeal goes to the 9th Circuit CoA. The 9th Circuit CoA makes a decision. 4. The 9th Circuit COA decision is binding precedent on all future copyright cases heard in district courts in the 9th Circuit. Now compare this to a patent case. Assume it is purely a patent case. As with our hypothetical copyright case, let's assume this patent case is filed in a San Francisco Federal court. Everything is the same as it is with the copyright case except replace "Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit" with "United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit" (CAFC) [1]. Patent case appeals from district courts all go to CAFC regardless of which Circuit the district court is in. Where it gets muddled is when a case is both a patent case and a copyright case. That was the case in Oracle vs. Google. In that situation, the appeal from the district court goes to CAFC, and CAFC rules on both the patent aspects of the appeal and the copyright aspects. However, on the copyright aspects CAFC is supposed to follow the precedents of the appeals court for the Circuit, so in this case they are supposed to follow 9th Circuit CoA copyright precedent...and many legal scholars think they botched this. This is a pretty messed up design because it creates a situation where you have one court (CAFC) interpreting another court's binding precedent (9th Circuit CoA), but there is no path to appeal the decision from the first court to the second court. In every other situation that comes to mind, if one court is supposed to follow the precedent of another court there is a way to have that second court review the first court. CAFC's copyright ruling is binding on the district court in this particular case. It is not binding anywhere else. If, say, Apple and Microsoft got into a tussle over APIs and one sued the other in a district court in the 9th Circuit, that court would still look to what the 9th Circuit CoA has said, not to what CAFC says. CAFC would be just another non-Supreme Court, non-9th Circuit CoA source that the court could consider for insight but is not obligated to follow. So, as long as an API dispute does not also involve patents, the legal status of APIs should be what it was before Oracle vs. Google. That's assuming that you also think that if you end up getting sued it will not involve patents. If it involves patents, and your lawsuit is in the 9th, then you should assume that CAFC will rule consistently with their Oracle ruling at least until an API case makes it to the 9th Circuit CoA and they say something that makes it clear CAFC misunderstood 9th precedent. [1] replace might not be quite correct. The district court in a patent case will look to the Supreme Court and CAFC for precedent, but it might also still look to the appeals court for its Circuit, too, because that court will have heard patent appeals before CAFC was created and some of those might still be precedent in that Circuit.