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Seriously people - read the comment before down-voting it. A flood of down-votes coming in in less time than it takes to read what I wrote implies that you aren

by yarg 7y ago

Seriously people - read the comment before down-voting it. A flood of down-votes coming in in less time than it takes to read what I wrote implies that you aren't even considering the argument I'm presenting. I hate to say it, but I'm with Oracle on this - but not for any reason that I've seen mentioned (so I guess I want neither party to win). (Notwithstanding Sun's internal excitement at Google's use of Java prior to the Oracle acquisition.) There is a justification on the grounds of obviousness for certain method headers to be uncopyrightable. But for inobvious and complicated method headers I do not believe that the restriction should prevent the API from being subject to copyright, but rather to limit the applicability of the copyright for fair use purposes. Specifically I believe the copyrights on such interfaces should not be applicable where interoperability is the justification for the reuse of the interface. Google broke compatibility with Java. I do not believe that Google is using the API under fair use constraints. I'm not sure how the law operates here - but I believe that the precedent set by a Google victory would be more damaging to my position. I'd like to see Google lose, and for someone later - operating with cross-compatibility in mind - to present and win a fair use case for reuse of an API.

gpm 7y ago
Let's assume everything you said except the conclusion is right (I disagree with almost all of it, but for the purposes of this discussion I'll put that aside since it's better argued in the fine legal briefs). Why does fair use for interoperability require perfect interoperability? That seems like a totally unreasonable bar. It would mean that making some fraction of an API ridiculously complex to implement a way from stopping anyone from implementing the rest of it.
- yarg 7y ago
  I'm not talking perfect interoperability - I believe that substitutability should be the bar. Google produced something that is not substitutable in either direction, so what I perceive as the reasonable fair use argument cannot be used here.
  - gpm 7y ago
    What do you mean it's not substantial? People use the same java libraries on android and servers all the time, thanks to being able to use a shared standard library API (the supposedly copyrighted material in question in this case).
    - yarg 7y ago
      Substitutable, and no it isn't. Google deliberately broke compatibility with java, its language and its packaging. From the UI perspective, there is actually a reasonable justification for limiting compatibility - but they went far further than what was reasonable. They did this to prevent applications executable on any JVM from running on Android.
      - monocasa 7y ago
        The JVM itself makes backwards incompatible changes. I have jars that work on earlier VMs, but don't anymore.
        yarg 7y ago
        Sure, but I'm damned certain that's never happened with the destruction of interoperability being the goal in mind.
        monocasa 7y ago
        The destruction of interoperability wasn't the goal in mind with Android either. Java ME sucked, and SE is somehow even a worse fit for phones. The fundamental process model destroys battery life, hence the switch in Android to that model that'll shut the app down basically at any time and allow it to save state, so it can come back to where it was later. In addition to that, an IPC system was added (which basically doesn't exist in Java ME), and a bunch of support for devices that are only accessible in Java via 3rd party libraries anyway. Oh, and the lack of swing. But come on, even Eclipse doesn't use swing.
        7y ago
wtallis 7y ago
> Specifically I believe the copyrights on such interfaces should not be applicable where interoperability is the justification for the reuse of the interface. Google broke compatibility with Java. You cannot make good law on this basis. Requiring compliance to a compatibility standard written by Oracle would give Oracle all the power, and render that kind of fair use exception effectively impossible to exercise. There's no good way to define what kind and degree of interoperability should qualify. The only regulatory option that doesn't trivially collapse into a complete win for Oracle is for API copyrights to not exist in the first place.
- yarg 7y ago
  I think that you're making a bit of a leap here. There are a large number of JVMs - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Java_virtual_machines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Java_virtual_machines. Not all of which will be Oracle certified, I would argue that each and every one of them should be free to exist regardless of that fact, on the grounds of fair use. The courts have never been black and white entities - and there has long existed the legal notions of best and reasonable efforts. Which I think should be the standard by which a competing implementations interoperability should be judged. This also ties in to another part of another response that I had not addressed - the reasonable efforts standard would protect against being required to implement needlessly complex parts of API.
  - wtallis 7y ago
    Postulating a "reasonable effort" legal standard does absolutely nothing to answer the more important questions about what kind and degree of compatibility should be considered the goal. Whether it's judged strictly or with some leeway, we still need to know who other than Oracle gets to decide how much compatibility with Java would be necessary for fair use to unquestionably apply.
  - throwaway2048 7y ago
    The mistake you are making is assuming Oracle is, and will continue to operate in good faith, judging by their past history of rent extraction maximization, that is absolutely not the case.
0xcde4c3db 7y ago
I'll admit that I'm not sure how the law operates here myself. But I worry that because fair use is an affirmative defense, your formulation opens the door to something like a platform vendor analog to SLAPP suits. That is: it seems like if I, as the legally anointed steward of a platform, believe that your leveraging of my API is in line with my business model, I can decide not to sue you. If you try to compete with me (even in a venue that isn't using said API), I can decide to sue you just to make you incur the cost of defense. The particular burden of platform fragmentation and how it interacts with trademark law is a pretty subjective thing, so I suppose Oracle ultimately gets to make a prospective competitor relitigate Apple v. Franklin and Sega v. Accolade and Oracle v. Google Every. Single. Goddamned. Time. They. Want. No, sir, I don't like it.
- yarg 7y ago
  I don't disagree with you about that being a danger - but I don't think that the solution to bad faith operators in copyright is to bring the system down any more than I believe it to be the answer in patent law. I think that the system desperately needs to more actively punish those who abuse the legal system. If a case is found to be frivolous I belief that the plaintiff should have to pay both fines and damages. The plaintiff's lawyers should also be punished - warnings, fines and eventual disbarment.
  - monocasa 7y ago
    What if the defendent doesn't have the funds to get all the way to the frivolous decision?
    - yarg 7y ago
      That's hard- maybe talk to the EFF (https://www.eff.org/pages/legal-assistance https://www.eff.org/pages/legal-assistance)? I'd prefer it if it didn't to come to that, and they lack the budget to do all that needs to be done, the system simply lacks enough good operators to act as a counterpoint to those operating in bad faith. I think when you need that counterpoint at all, it's the system as a whole that needs to change. But this is getting way off topic.

by yarg 7y ago

gpm 7y ago

Let's assume everything you said except the conclusion is right (I disagree with almost all of it, but for the purposes of this discussion I'll put that aside since it's better argued in the fine legal briefs). Why does fair use for interoperability require perfect interoperability? That seems like a totally unreasonable bar. It would mean that making some fraction of an API ridiculously complex to implement a way from stopping anyone from implementing the rest of it.

yarg 7y ago
I'm not talking perfect interoperability - I believe that substitutability should be the bar. Google produced something that is not substitutable in either direction, so what I perceive as the reasonable fair use argument cannot be used here.
- gpm 7y ago
  What do you mean it's not substantial? People use the same java libraries on android and servers all the time, thanks to being able to use a shared standard library API (the supposedly copyrighted material in question in this case).
  - yarg 7y ago
    Substitutable, and no it isn't. Google deliberately broke compatibility with java, its language and its packaging. From the UI perspective, there is actually a reasonable justification for limiting compatibility - but they went far further than what was reasonable. They did this to prevent applications executable on any JVM from running on Android.
    - monocasa 7y ago
      The JVM itself makes backwards incompatible changes. I have jars that work on earlier VMs, but don't anymore.
      - yarg 7y ago
        Sure, but I'm damned certain that's never happened with the destruction of interoperability being the goal in mind.
        monocasa 7y ago
        The destruction of interoperability wasn't the goal in mind with Android either. Java ME sucked, and SE is somehow even a worse fit for phones. The fundamental process model destroys battery life, hence the switch in Android to that model that'll shut the app down basically at any time and allow it to save state, so it can come back to where it was later. In addition to that, an IPC system was added (which basically doesn't exist in Java ME), and a bunch of support for devices that are only accessible in Java via 3rd party libraries anyway. Oh, and the lack of swing. But come on, even Eclipse doesn't use swing.
      - 7y ago

wtallis 7y ago

> Specifically I believe the copyrights on such interfaces should not be applicable where interoperability is the justification for the reuse of the interface. Google broke compatibility with Java. You cannot make good law on this basis. Requiring compliance to a compatibility standard written by Oracle would give Oracle all the power, and render that kind of fair use exception effectively impossible to exercise. There's no good way to define what kind and degree of interoperability should qualify. The only regulatory option that doesn't trivially collapse into a complete win for Oracle is for API copyrights to not exist in the first place.

yarg 7y ago
I think that you're making a bit of a leap here. There are a large number of JVMs - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Java_virtual_machines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Java_virtual_machines. Not all of which will be Oracle certified, I would argue that each and every one of them should be free to exist regardless of that fact, on the grounds of fair use. The courts have never been black and white entities - and there has long existed the legal notions of best and reasonable efforts. Which I think should be the standard by which a competing implementations interoperability should be judged. This also ties in to another part of another response that I had not addressed - the reasonable efforts standard would protect against being required to implement needlessly complex parts of API.
- wtallis 7y ago
  Postulating a "reasonable effort" legal standard does absolutely nothing to answer the more important questions about what kind and degree of compatibility should be considered the goal. Whether it's judged strictly or with some leeway, we still need to know who other than Oracle gets to decide how much compatibility with Java would be necessary for fair use to unquestionably apply.
- throwaway2048 7y ago
  The mistake you are making is assuming Oracle is, and will continue to operate in good faith, judging by their past history of rent extraction maximization, that is absolutely not the case.

0xcde4c3db 7y ago

I'll admit that I'm not sure how the law operates here myself. But I worry that because fair use is an affirmative defense, your formulation opens the door to something like a platform vendor analog to SLAPP suits. That is: it seems like if I, as the legally anointed steward of a platform, believe that your leveraging of my API is in line with my business model, I can decide not to sue you. If you try to compete with me (even in a venue that isn't using said API), I can decide to sue you just to make you incur the cost of defense. The particular burden of platform fragmentation and how it interacts with trademark law is a pretty subjective thing, so I suppose Oracle ultimately gets to make a prospective competitor relitigate Apple v. Franklin and Sega v. Accolade and Oracle v. Google Every. Single. Goddamned. Time. They. Want. No, sir, I don't like it.

yarg 7y ago
I don't disagree with you about that being a danger - but I don't think that the solution to bad faith operators in copyright is to bring the system down any more than I believe it to be the answer in patent law. I think that the system desperately needs to more actively punish those who abuse the legal system. If a case is found to be frivolous I belief that the plaintiff should have to pay both fines and damages. The plaintiff's lawyers should also be punished - warnings, fines and eventual disbarment.
- monocasa 7y ago
  What if the defendent doesn't have the funds to get all the way to the frivolous decision?
  - yarg 7y ago
    That's hard- maybe talk to the EFF (https://www.eff.org/pages/legal-assistance https://www.eff.org/pages/legal-assistance)? I'd prefer it if it didn't to come to that, and they lack the budget to do all that needs to be done, the system simply lacks enough good operators to act as a counterpoint to those operating in bad faith. I think when you need that counterpoint at all, it's the system as a whole that needs to change. But this is getting way off topic.