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RE> 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 d

by maire 9y ago

RE> 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 ago
There'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.
- maire 9y ago
  Hi ABCLAW, I read page 17 and it is clearly written by someone that doesn't understand software. My non-lawyer reading of the justification implies that polymorphism violates copyright law - which is an even deeper issue. This would destroy all modern software development. Yikes! I am now even more confused. Even Oracle would disagree with this point of view. In your text, you are now making the argument that Google did not have a cleanroom implementation. This is a different discussion that should be on it's own thread.
  - ABCLAW 9y ago
    1) Judges aren't computer scientists, and LOTS of IP cases read very poorly as a result. This is a structural issue with how judges are educated within court rooms regarding the facts surrounding the disputes in question - but let's just accept it as an unfortunate cost to adjudicating the way we do. Regarding your polymorphism point, you've got the cause and effect swapped. The LACK of polymorphism was the basis for Alsup saying APIs are uncopyrightable. Because there's only one way to do something, the words and the function are linked, and copyright does not protect function, ergo copyright wouldn't protect the word either. This line of reasoning doesn't flow in reverse - Polymorphism doesn't indicate that a work is copyrighted or subject to restrictions upon use, or that various safe harbour provisions/copyright exceptions do not apply. 2) There's no need for a separate discussion. I'm not making the argument; it's literally admitted by Google in the context of this case that they straight up copied chunks of code.
    - loup-vaillant 9y ago
      I have just read from page 17 to 33. I expected a load of bullcrap, but ended up with only one nugget, page 31: > We further find that the district court erred in focusing its merger analysis on the options available to Google at the time of copying. It is well-established that copyrightability and the scope of protectable activity are to be evaluated at the time of creation, not at the time of infringement. The error is subtle, but crucial: when Sun/Oracle released their API, they gave rise to a new functionality: interoperability with whatever they just created. If someone wants to write a drop-in replacement, they have to read the declarations, copy them all, then write a conforming implementation. Changing the order of those declarations would still be possible, but one would still have to start from the original files anyway. Assuming those were readable to begin with, any transformation would be a purely legal trick, so they can say "I didn't really copied it". As far as I can tell the court either ignored or dismissed this interoperability issue. Agreeing with Oracle that Google could have renamed its function names, even though those names are part of the API they were conforming to (the `max` function is obviously part of the standard library), is ignorant at best, dishonest at worst.

by maire 9y ago

ABCLAW 9y ago

There'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.

maire 9y ago
Hi ABCLAW, I read page 17 and it is clearly written by someone that doesn't understand software. My non-lawyer reading of the justification implies that polymorphism violates copyright law - which is an even deeper issue. This would destroy all modern software development. Yikes! I am now even more confused. Even Oracle would disagree with this point of view. In your text, you are now making the argument that Google did not have a cleanroom implementation. This is a different discussion that should be on it's own thread.
- ABCLAW 9y ago
  1) Judges aren't computer scientists, and LOTS of IP cases read very poorly as a result. This is a structural issue with how judges are educated within court rooms regarding the facts surrounding the disputes in question - but let's just accept it as an unfortunate cost to adjudicating the way we do. Regarding your polymorphism point, you've got the cause and effect swapped. The LACK of polymorphism was the basis for Alsup saying APIs are uncopyrightable. Because there's only one way to do something, the words and the function are linked, and copyright does not protect function, ergo copyright wouldn't protect the word either. This line of reasoning doesn't flow in reverse - Polymorphism doesn't indicate that a work is copyrighted or subject to restrictions upon use, or that various safe harbour provisions/copyright exceptions do not apply. 2) There's no need for a separate discussion. I'm not making the argument; it's literally admitted by Google in the context of this case that they straight up copied chunks of code.
  - loup-vaillant 9y ago
    I have just read from page 17 to 33. I expected a load of bullcrap, but ended up with only one nugget, page 31: > We further find that the district court erred in focusing its merger analysis on the options available to Google at the time of copying. It is well-established that copyrightability and the scope of protectable activity are to be evaluated at the time of creation, not at the time of infringement. The error is subtle, but crucial: when Sun/Oracle released their API, they gave rise to a new functionality: interoperability with whatever they just created. If someone wants to write a drop-in replacement, they have to read the declarations, copy them all, then write a conforming implementation. Changing the order of those declarations would still be possible, but one would still have to start from the original files anyway. Assuming those were readable to begin with, any transformation would be a purely legal trick, so they can say "I didn't really copied it". As far as I can tell the court either ignored or dismissed this interoperability issue. Agreeing with Oracle that Google could have renamed its function names, even though those names are part of the API they were conforming to (the `max` function is obviously part of the standard library), is ignorant at best, dishonest at worst.