5 ms·

The 1% will be things like String.methodNoOneUses or ObscureClass. Even if they aren't identical they will be close enough for 99.999% of the programs people w

• foota 9y ago
  How do you propose they do this black box testing?
  • treis 9y ago
    Write code, run it through the compiler and create specifications based on what you observe.
    • monocasa 9y ago
      And once again, you'd end up in exactly this legal situation since the names are visible via reflection, but somehow aren't functional as viewed by the court. That's one of the most important issues with this ruling; it effectively bans even black box reimplementations.
  • hcknwscommenter 9y ago
    It is not copyrights problem that obeying the law might be difficult.
• michaelmrose 9y ago
  So bugs nobody files then? Why do you think this is a useful distinction. Either APIs aren't copyrightable or we should pass a law that says they aren't immediately.
  • hcknwscommenter 9y ago
    Because? You want the world to work that way? Well, it doesn't. APIs are copyrightable.
    • dragonwriter 9y ago
      APIs are copyrightable under a CAFC decision notionally applying 9th Circuit law in this case which the Supreme Court declined to review because, pending the resolution of other issues, they viewed it as not ripe for review. Since this is not within the CAFCs special subject-matter domain (patents or any of the other areas which bring a case within it's jurisdiction; this case is at CAFC because to once had patent claims even though they are no longer live), this ruling doesn't seem to be binding precedent on any lower court. So, it's “law” in only a very weak and tenuous sense.
      • hcknwscommenter 9y ago
        Well, I would love to hear about a circuit court case that says otherwise. Seriously, I have no idea, but I do not believe such exists.
        • michaelmrose 9y ago
          Basically it's not the law yet and may never be the law.
          • hcknwscommenter 9y ago
            Uhh. No. At least under any interpretation I know about what the law "is."
            • dragonwriter 9y ago
              It's neither express in the statute nor is it in case law binding on any court, because while CAFC decisions are nationally binding, that is only on the subject matter uniquely assigned to the CAFC, but that doesn't include copyright. Those are claims the CAFC decided under 9th Circuit case law in a case that is in its jurisdiction because it once had patent claims, even though those claims aren't active. Had the actual 9th Circuit ruled this way, it would be 9th Circuit case law, but the CAFC applying (notionally) 9th Circuit case law doesn't create new 9th Circuit case law. It doesn't even create precedent binding on future CAFC panels, even if those panels are themselves applying 9th Circuit case law. It is at most persuasive authority, rather than binding authority, in any future case, so it is only “law” in the sense that, e.g., scholarly treatises on the law are “law”. So, barring this case being both heard and affirmed by the Supreme Court, this interpretation of copyright law, while potentially decisive in the outcome of the present case, isn't, substantially, law, so much as an idea of what the law might be.
  • hcknwscommenter 9y ago
    Bugs are a red-herring to the discussion. Bugs doesn't get you out of copying. The question is: did you copy or not? Google argued "we certainly did copy but APIs can't be copyrighted." Which was not the law at the time they did the copying and is not the law now .
    • monocasa 9y ago
      Except it is the law now and then that APIs aren't copyrightable according to the court that's generally supposed to handle such things, in this instance The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. They've ruled plenty of times on the matter, and have developed decades of case law stating that implementing APIs is totally kosher. Sony v. Bleem is great example. There the appeals court ruled that not only could Bleem ship a PS1 emulator with reverse engineered APIs of the kernel (explicitly as a commercial venture even!), but they could port it to a competitor's game console (the Dreamcast), and use Sony's IP in screenshots. But, because Oracle v. Google case had an ancillary patent question in an earlier appeal, the appeals are instead going to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. This court is really only supposed to answer patent questions. The CAFC can't set precedent in these matters, and overwhelmingly defers to the district courts' precedent. Bot for some reason they have chose to ignore all of that this time and make their own, fresh (and super weak) precedent that only applies to copyright cases with patent questions.
      • stjohnswarts 9y ago
        I bet if one looks hard enough he would find links between these judges and moneyed interests tracing back to Oracle.
        • monocasa 9y ago
          Eh, I wouldn't go that far. CAFC judges just tend to be appointed (at least a little) for how much of a hard on they have intellectual property rights in general. The whole circuit was setup pretty much only to do patent appeals for the most part. The judges probably just think of themselves as 'principled'. And they are technically allowed to do this, despite it being kind of a dick move.