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I thought we all decided APIs shouldn't/couldn't be copyrighted because that was evil when Oracle and Microsoft tried to do it? I guess literally copy-pasting

I thought we all decided APIs shouldn't/couldn't be copyrighted because that was evil when Oracle and Microsoft tried to do it? I guess literally copy-pasting the docs is a flagrant violation, but it seems like that's the least of their problems. Presumably BigCorp will now get a cleanroom team to re-document the re-implemented API.

didibus 8y ago
Ya, I find it even more interesting that they copied the Smartcars API. In theory, if you copy an API, you also copy its semantics. The docs for it are supposed to be interchangeable. Its touchy. For example, wouldn't most people rely and use the Java doc even for Android? Now obviously, redistributing a copyrighted doc on their own website without permission is something else. Cause I'm guessing docs are copyrightable, but not APIs. The whole thing is getting more interesting to be honest.
- brootstrap 8y ago
  Good opinions here. I worked at very early stage startup, and our huge competitors with 1 billion worth of funding were stealing our shit from day 1. Thankfully, we didnt spec out a nice API and all that shit because we were in startup mode. That makes it a bit harder to copy things our stuff because it was a huge pile of undocumented software and data. I think that is just life in tech now. You put out a 'feature' in your app that is new and cool. Two weeks later the same feature shows up in your competitors app. In our case, always better to be ahead of the curve. You've got a small team with 20 folks who are putting pressure on the 100 person teams at these giant companies.
- wongarsu 8y ago
  They could just say "Our API is identical to the Smartcars API, documentation can be found here (link)". Smartcars might even be happy about that as it's free advertising. The way they did it looks much shadier, but I doubt it's actually illegal. The longer text blocks are all original, even if clearly inspired by smartcars. The descriptions of paramters is mostly copied verbatim, but I have my doubts it's copyrightable, after all there are only so many ways to describe what "access_token" does. The overall structure of the documentation is also clearly copied and is probably protected by copyright, but it's easily changed.
amingilani 8y ago
Came to say just this. They say "illegally cloning our product", but I see nothing illegal so far and I'd love to be corrected. I doubt it is so, but even if those tokens pass the threshold of originality[0], does a few blobs of superficial text justify a lawsuit? Things would be dramatically different if they'd copied source code, but so far, it's just documentation. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_of_originality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_of_originality
- dangus 8y ago
  Directly copying a document is simple copyright infringement. Just because it's documentation doesn't mean everyone has a free license to copy and redistribute it. Whether or not any violations occurred in copying code probably depends on whether any employees with company secrets were poached and involved in development. That's a very big, well known no-no amongst tech companies. It's why Compaq had a complete "clean room" to reverse engineer the IBM PC.
  - ttoinou 8y ago
    Couldn't they have written exactly the same things, taking inspiration ?
    - pizzapill 8y ago
      There is a UUID they use in a example that is 1:1 copied. > For example, the number of random version-4 UUIDs which need to be generated in order to have a 50% probability of at least one collision is 2.71 quintillion [...] This number is equivalent to generating 1 billion UUIDs per second for about 85 years, and a file containing this many UUIDs, at 16 bytes per UUID, would be about 45 exabytes, many times larger than the largest databases currently in existence, which are on the order of hundreds of petabytes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universally_unique_identifier#Collisions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universally_unique_identifier#... The probability that they generated the same text 1:1 and a UUID in it by random chance is very, very, very, very slim.
dangus 8y ago
I don't know that "we" decided that at all, and I don't think that "we" were ever naive enough to assume that it's okay to copy Oracle or Microsoft's documentation or code just because they're big and "we" don't like them. This appears to be a lawyer's dream case and I wouldn't be surprised that, if this case makes it to court, discovery finds some actual stolen code. If this company ever poached employees they'd better be very, very careful. IBM "bluewashes" their terminology and vocabulary for this same reason. They can easily catch someone else using IBM-specific language, and they'll often call very common things by unique and very different names compared to other companies. This can also help cover for any perceived issues with employees bringing over ideas from their previous company.
scient 8y ago
Its not even their proprietary API, its OAuth endpoints.
marcosdumay 8y ago
Well, "we" don't have authority to decide those things, do we? It looks like API copying violates copyrights on the US, so go for it. In a democracy crazy laws can't be crazy just for the bad.

didibus 8y ago

Ya, I find it even more interesting that they copied the Smartcars API. In theory, if you copy an API, you also copy its semantics. The docs for it are supposed to be interchangeable. Its touchy. For example, wouldn't most people rely and use the Java doc even for Android? Now obviously, redistributing a copyrighted doc on their own website without permission is something else. Cause I'm guessing docs are copyrightable, but not APIs. The whole thing is getting more interesting to be honest.

brootstrap 8y ago
Good opinions here. I worked at very early stage startup, and our huge competitors with 1 billion worth of funding were stealing our shit from day 1. Thankfully, we didnt spec out a nice API and all that shit because we were in startup mode. That makes it a bit harder to copy things our stuff because it was a huge pile of undocumented software and data. I think that is just life in tech now. You put out a 'feature' in your app that is new and cool. Two weeks later the same feature shows up in your competitors app. In our case, always better to be ahead of the curve. You've got a small team with 20 folks who are putting pressure on the 100 person teams at these giant companies.
wongarsu 8y ago
They could just say "Our API is identical to the Smartcars API, documentation can be found here (link)". Smartcars might even be happy about that as it's free advertising. The way they did it looks much shadier, but I doubt it's actually illegal. The longer text blocks are all original, even if clearly inspired by smartcars. The descriptions of paramters is mostly copied verbatim, but I have my doubts it's copyrightable, after all there are only so many ways to describe what "access_token" does. The overall structure of the documentation is also clearly copied and is probably protected by copyright, but it's easily changed.

amingilani 8y ago

Came to say just this. They say "illegally cloning our product", but I see nothing illegal so far and I'd love to be corrected. I doubt it is so, but even if those tokens pass the threshold of originality[0], does a few blobs of superficial text justify a lawsuit? Things would be dramatically different if they'd copied source code, but so far, it's just documentation. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_of_originality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_of_originality

dangus 8y ago
Directly copying a document is simple copyright infringement. Just because it's documentation doesn't mean everyone has a free license to copy and redistribute it. Whether or not any violations occurred in copying code probably depends on whether any employees with company secrets were poached and involved in development. That's a very big, well known no-no amongst tech companies. It's why Compaq had a complete "clean room" to reverse engineer the IBM PC.
- ttoinou 8y ago
  Couldn't they have written exactly the same things, taking inspiration ?
  - pizzapill 8y ago
    There is a UUID they use in a example that is 1:1 copied. > For example, the number of random version-4 UUIDs which need to be generated in order to have a 50% probability of at least one collision is 2.71 quintillion [...] This number is equivalent to generating 1 billion UUIDs per second for about 85 years, and a file containing this many UUIDs, at 16 bytes per UUID, would be about 45 exabytes, many times larger than the largest databases currently in existence, which are on the order of hundreds of petabytes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universally_unique_identifier#Collisions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universally_unique_identifier#... The probability that they generated the same text 1:1 and a UUID in it by random chance is very, very, very, very slim.

dangus 8y ago

I don't know that "we" decided that at all, and I don't think that "we" were ever naive enough to assume that it's okay to copy Oracle or Microsoft's documentation or code just because they're big and "we" don't like them. This appears to be a lawyer's dream case and I wouldn't be surprised that, if this case makes it to court, discovery finds some actual stolen code. If this company ever poached employees they'd better be very, very careful. IBM "bluewashes" their terminology and vocabulary for this same reason. They can easily catch someone else using IBM-specific language, and they'll often call very common things by unique and very different names compared to other companies. This can also help cover for any perceived issues with employees bringing over ideas from their previous company.

scient 8y ago

Its not even their proprietary API, its OAuth endpoints.

marcosdumay 8y ago

Well, "we" don't have authority to decide those things, do we? It looks like API copying violates copyrights on the US, so go for it. In a democracy crazy laws can't be crazy just for the bad.