10 ms·
It may be helpful for readers to look at the actual meat and potatoes of the decision itself. I recommend jumping in at Page 27 of the decision so that they can
by ABCLAW 9y ago
It may be helpful for readers to look at the actual meat and potatoes of the decision itself. I recommend jumping in at Page 27 of the decision so that they can see how the fair use factors were evaluated in this case:
http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/opinions-orders/17-1118.Opinion.3-26-2018.1.PDF http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/opinions-or...
Fair use has four factors, lets see how it shook out:
1) Purpose and Character:
Google tried to argue that because android is free that it isn't commercial. Bzzt. Nope. You don't need direct monetization to make something commercial.
Was it transformative? They verbatim copied shit. Google claimed it was transformative because they used it in smartphones, yo. No. You guys who think patents that slap "but use a computer to do it" onto the end of some existing process are bad? Google's trying to say the same thing per computer form factor.
2) Nature of the Copyrighted Work:
Dealt with previously - APIs are copyrightable. Lots of people have an issue with this, but the previous opinions on that point are where you should go for material on that point.
3) Amount and Substantiality:
Bad faith usage came out around neutral; wasn't a huge amount copied but it was important material, as admitted by Google themselves.
4) Effect on Work's Value:
Direct evidence of market harm demonstrated by showing that Amazon leveraged Google's infringement to lower their license payment. Slam dunk.
Overall, I agree with the other posters indicating that once API copyrights were upheld that this was going to be a clear loser for Google. Maybe they'll get cert and have the supreme court take a look at this following the re-trial.
- dmix 9y agoWhat exactly was 'copied' by Google? Was it actual code directly copied or just the general design / APIs that were mirrored by their Android Java playform?
- moomin 9y agoThe Java API definition.
- suyash 9y agoGoogle stole Java and it's time for them to Pay up BIG MONEY!
- oldandtired 9y agoIf they stole Java then you have stolen all the words in your comment.
- monocasa 9y agoThe court has made the point now that literally just the class and method names are subject to copyright.
- EGreg 9y agoI thought Google used the implementations!
- guelo 9y agoThey mostly used Apache Harmony's implementations.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- ghayes 9y agoI thought one of the main issues was that there was only one natural implementation of many API functions. Like when you assign students a coding question, you will see many answers come back identical even though no one cheated.
- monocasa 9y agoEven then, there were only a couple trivial places that saw literal copying. The code that checks for array out of bounds was the main one.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- ninkendo 9y agoDevil’s advocate here... the method signatures, the layout of the classes, what inherits from what, what bits are private vs public, are all pretty non-trivial. Moreover it’s where a lot of the subjective decision making happens, whereas the actual implementations are straightforward once you know what the method signatures should be. I don’t necessarily agree with the decision but I can see where they’re coming from.
- jandrese 9y agoIf API are copyrightable how do clean room implementations work? It seems IBM could sue the clone makers for the BIOS API if that's the case.
- lallysingh 9y agoI think because there are no identifiers. The BIOS API is: fill registers with these values, run this interrupt. That's different from openFileWithName(String fileName).
- mlindner 9y agoWhat? No those are the same thing. Why is an API suddenly not copyrightable if its 0x51234 offset 5 bits, vs human readable text? That is nonsense. Numbers and words should not be treated differently. What if I named my function 015342342(String 123949)? How does that change anything?
- jerf 9y agoCopyright has a creativity requirement. I can easily see a court ruling that 0x51234 bit 5 is not creative whereas SetBrickMode(true) has a spark of creativity in that it could have been named multiple things. Without endorsement, there is definitely a line between text in which one can be "creative" and numbers in copyright law as written. The problem here isn't the line between creative and non-creative, the problem here is the introduction of copyright, a concept created for expressive works, into a field that consists of functional works. It should not be a surprise to anyone, not even lawyers, that this isn't going to "just work". The surprise to me is that it has taken this long for this foundational clash to start emerging at a big scale.
- pbhjpbhj 9y agoThe number sequence to word differentiation you make is specious - you may not consider it creative but there's a creative spark in choice of a number, or choice of a location in memory that leads to choice of a number, etc., as you later intimate that creativity is technically lead. The choice of call name in an API are arbitrary, the reuse of those names to interface with that API is not a creative copy it's a technical requirement. If I make a toothed belt to fit a pair of gears, that's not an artistic expression no matter the the tooth pitch is an exact duplicate of that on the gears. If the gear is purple and orange spots, in a distinctive pattern, and I make my belt the same pattern then that's a copyright issue. If the API calls were like "thisIsTheSummerOfOurDiscoTents(banana)" - such that the names are sufficient to be individual works of art, and weren't following a technical function, then perhaps you have an argument that the API is a work of literature, or otherwise an artistic creation. It just sounds like a wrong decision was previously made and should now be overturned.
- maire 9y agoRE> Nature of the Copyrighted Work: Dealt with previously In my entire career you could not copyright an API. There is good reason for this. If you wanted to do business with certain entities, the implementation had to be multisource. The new implementation had to come from a cleanroom, but in this case it came from open source (which seems equivalent). Therefore you have one judge making one decision that is an anomaly. It seems to me that a single judge should not be making a landmark decision.
- ABCLAW 9y agoThere's a lot of similar responses regarding the API copyright issue. APIs have been 'subject to copyright' for 4 years, since the 2014 decision in this case. Lets see some key details: This is the 2012 ruling: http://www.groklaw.net/pdf3/OraGoogle-1202.pdf http://www.groklaw.net/pdf3/OraGoogle-1202.pdf Alsup indicates that SSO isn't dead law, but finds that APIs aren't copyrightable because they are 'the only one way to write" things to get the key functionality. Copyright doesn't cover purely functional elements and since the expression and the function are the same, copyright bows out. Note: I like Alsup, but this argument is based on obviously factually incorrect premises which are blown up on appeal. Here's the appeal in 2014: http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/opinions-orders/13-1021.Opinion.5-7-2014.1.PDF http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/opinions-or... They summarize the facts as follows: " And, the court informed the jury that Google conceded that it copied the declaring code used in the 37 packages verbatim. The court also instructed the jury that Google conceded copying the rangeCheck function and the eight decompiled security files, but that Google maintained that its use of those lines of code was de minimis. See Final Charge to the Jury (Phase One), Oracle Am., Inc. v. Google Inc., 3:10-cv3561 (N.D. Cal. Apr. 30, 2012), ECF No. 1018 at 14 (“With respect to the infringement issues concerning the rangeCheck and other similar files, Google agrees that the accused lines of code and comments came from the copyrighted material but contends that the amounts involved were so negligible as to be de minimis and thus should be excused.”). " Ie: Google copied and admitted it copied. This isn't a cleanroom implementation. For more details on why they found copyrightability, see the discussion starting on p.17. There's a lot in there, and having a discussion about it (or at least a proper one) requires people to look at the actual text. Edit: Made the formatting better.
- cat199 9y ago> Dealt with previously - APIs are copyrightable IANAL, but doesn't this contradict case law elsewhere?
- hcknwscommenter 9y agoNo
- mtgx 9y agoFrom the ruling: > The Java API is a collection of “pre-written Java source code programs for common and more advanced computer functions.” I'm not too familiar with Java, but I believe they are mistaking APIs for libraries there. Did Google infringe on the libraries or the actual API? Like did Google actually infringe on what Oracle calls the "Java API" (but is actually a library), and are we all talking past each other when discussing "API copyrightability" when Google may have actually been found of infringing a library? I think the CAFC may be just as confused about which one is which and on which it's ruling. Additionally, how would this relate to the Java programming language being "free" and why would Google infringe on anything if it was free? I don't know the actual details of Sun's licensing, though, but even from what Oracle is claiming now, it seems that Oracle's case is quite weak, and I don't see how its license specifically banned Google from doing whatever they think they did. Finally, the CAFC's pro-patent rulings are almost always overturned by the Supreme Court, and if I believe they wouldn't even have gotten this case if Oracle hadn't also accused Oracle initially of patent infringement. If Oracle had only accused Google of copyright infringement, I think some other court would have gotten the case, maybe a court with less of a bad record in understanding IP law (going by Supreme Court's rulings at least). It's just a shame that Obama's pro-IP laws lawyers got in the way and convinced the Supreme Court to reject the case.
- maemilius 9y ago> if Oracle hadn't also accused Oracle initially of patent infringement. Was this a mistake or did Oracle actually accuse themselves of infringing their own patents?
- 9y ago
- joshAg 9y agoSo then theoretically, Intel could sue AMD for supporting their x86 ISA? 1) AMD chips aren't free and the usage is totally for a commercial purpose. 2) ISAs are an API. 3) While the implementation is probably clean-room, it's still a total copy of the ISA structure and function call/return value. 4) Intel has been directly harmed by AMD competition, which results in them needing to be price competitive in certain markets.
- s2g 9y agoDon’t they cross license because AMD does need permission to reproduce an ISA?
- joshAg 9y agoisn't that just for patent infringement? EDIT: nope it explicitly covers the ISA, too
- dtech 9y agoAMD has a long-standing cross licensing agreement with Intel regarding x86
- joshAg 9y agoIsn't that for patent infringement? EDIT: nope it explicitly covers the ISA, too
- Zigurd 9y agoStrictly speaking, Java isn't used in Android. There is no JVM in Android, and there never was. It doesn't run Java bytecode. Java ends where dex translates Java bytecode. In recent version of Android, there's another layer where Dalvik bytecode is compiled to the target architecture. So don't think of Java being in Android. The Android toolchain uses Java, but the Android runtime is not a Java runtime. For one thing, this makes it different from Amazon using an Oracle Java runtime. But the total set of differences is deep and significant.
- BonesJustice 9y agoIt also erodes Google’s claims of fair use. Leveraging the Java language and APIs benefited Google much more than it benefited the Java ecosystem at large. Almost anything that targets Java can now be used on Android, but the reverse is not true. The sharing largely flows one way. Google had little interest in expanding the reach of the Java platform—they wanted to attract Java developers to their “looks like Java, but isn’t” platform while benefiting from the years of work that went into the JDK. I don’t necessarily think APIs should be copyrightable, but since they now are as a matter of law, I’m leaning towards Google’s actions constituting infringement.
- bonesss 9y ago> The sharing largely flows one way. While this may hit on our sense of fairness, it has no relation to legal "fair use". My political parody show owes no profits to the subjects of my derision, IoW.
- Zigurd 9y ago"Benefitting the ecosystem" doesn't bear on fair use at all, but if it did, one could point to Android driving a revival of Java generally, and dragging client-end Java coding out of a coma and into prominence. The same could have been said of Visual J++ but Sun killed that opportunity before it could really flourish.
- pvelagal 9y agoIMHO, if API's are copywritable, consider the equivalents : -) Are Networking protocols copywritable ? -) Are REST APIs copywritable ? I am not sure if this is the way open source world should work.
- phkahler 9y ago>> Dealt with previously - APIs are copyrightable. Bzzt. You really need to make a citation for that statement. Without it there is no point in considering your other 3. The case law around that issue is exactly Oracle vs Google.
- ABCLAW 9y agoBzzt. They're cited. By me. In this thread. The 2018 decision is not the same as the 2014 decision or the 2012 decision.
- hcknwscommenter 9y agoBing Bing Bing Bing. Everyone, read this last sentence. It is correct.
- deong 9y agoBut Oracle vs. Google is the citation. Google previously won based on Fair Use. By definition, that court considered APIs to be copyrightable. If they weren't, the case would have been adjudicated on those grounds instead of the provisions of copyright law that govern fair use.
- wtallis 9y agoThe district court found APIs to not be copyrightable. The Federal Circuit disagreed, and ordered the district court to hold a trial under the assumption that APIs are copyrightable—that's when Google's fair use defense became necessary. That Federal Circuit decision has not been reviewed by the Supreme Court, does not establish binding precedent outside the context of this case, and is widely seen by outsiders as being in error for not matching what the Ninth Circuit would have ruled. It is incorrect to make any categorical statement that APIs are copyrightable. That question is still pending. All that's been settled is that this one case is being conducted under the assumption that APIs are copyrightable, until such time as the Supreme Court decides to review this issue.
- 9y ago
- ScottBurson 9y ago> You guys who think patents that slap "but use a computer to do it" onto the end of some existing process are bad? Google's trying to say the same thing per computer form factor. This is ridiculous. An argument supporting a fair use defense in a copyright proceeding is a very different thing from a patentability argument. Google is not trying to claim patent rights to its Android API.