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I think the answer lies in compatibility and lock-in. Software and even hardware gets built against APIs. If APIs are protectable through copyright and a single

I think the answer lies in compatibility and lock-in. Software and even hardware gets built against APIs. If APIs are protectable through copyright and a single entity can control who can and cannot implement that API as a provider, then everyone who has built software that consumes the API will be locked into doing business with a single company or its approved providers. As software engineers, most of us value the ability to compete and be interoperable and we recognized APIs becoming protected as enabling a new era of walled gardens and barriers to creating competing products. We cheered for Compaq when they reverse engineered the IBM PC and started selling computers that could run software built for the IBM. We cheered Linux when it created a free alternative to the proprietary Unix interface. We cheered WINE when it made Windows APIs available under Linux. This kind of interoperability gives the rest of us the ability to reuse our own software without being beholden to the companies that created the original target platform. Incidentally, there's a slight distinction in wording around API copyrights. I don't think there's a doubt that they can be copyrighted. Anything that is written down, recorded or filmed automatically receives copyright protection. The interesting question is whether there is a fair use exemption for interoperability. I think it would be obviously wrong if Google had taken Java and its APIs, renamed it Gava and then started pushing developers to write Gava software instead of Java. But they didn't, they just made Java be able to run on a new class of devices. If all you're doing is helping to ensure that existing code written by other developers can work with your product, that's a benefit for those developers too as well as the end users that buy and run the software.

jhanschoo 7y ago
Regarding the point in the first paragraph: In that case, that is a legislative issue. A judiciary is not empowered to be lenient in their judgment on copyright infringement because of compatibility and lock-in.
- gpm 7y ago
  Case law strongly disagrees with you on this point. Most relevant to this case is the merger doctrine. Ideas that can be expressed in only a small number of ways are not copyrightable. Even more on point to your comment is the concept of copyright misuse. If you try to use your copyright (a government granted temporary monopoly on the reproduction of your work) to gain monopolies on other things you can not only lose the infringement case but in extreme cases even lose the copyright entirely. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_misuse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_misuse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idea%E2%80%93expression_distinction#Merger_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idea%E2%80%93expression_distin...
  - anticensor 7y ago
    > you can not only lose the infringement case but in extreme cases even lose the copyright entirely. Does the work become public domain or government royalty subject in that case? If the latter, it is worse since the government cannot be sued for copyright misuse, either.
    - gpm 7y ago
      Public domain or some state that approximates it (this is really not a well explored area of law and I'm not an expert).
      - anticensor 7y ago
        I asked because government royalty subjects are something extremely (and I consider dangerously) commonplace in Europe.
        rocqua 7y ago
        Do you have any examples of that? I'm European and don't know what you mean.
        anticensor 7y ago
        Works of government that are copyrighted by the government are called government royalty subjects.
  - jhanschoo 7y ago
    > Most relevant to this case is the merger doctrine. Ideas that can be expressed in only a small number of ways are not copyrightable. The CC's opinion is of interest here: > 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. See Apple Computer, Inc. v. Formula Int'l, Inc., 725 F.2d 521, 524 (9th Cir.1984) (quoting National Commission on New Technological Uses of Copyrighted Works, Final Report at 21 (1979) ("CONTU Report") (recognizing that the Copyright Act was designed "to protect all works of authorship from the moment of their fixation in any tangible medium of expression")). The focus is, therefore, on the options that were available to Sun/Oracle at the time it created the API packages. Of course, once Sun/Oracle created "java.lang.Math.max," programmers who want to use that particular package have to call it by that name. But, as the court acknowledged, nothing prevented Google from writing its own declaring code, along with its own implementing code, to achieve the same result. In such circumstances, the chosen expression simply does not merge with the idea being expressed.[7] > copyright misuse Inoperability with customers who have decided to use a service or product or lock-in due to said inoperability itself does not necessarily make the provider of the original service a monopoly. Interoperability arguments have relevance in fair-use, but the courts have yet to determine if Google has a right to the APIs under fair use. Google and others may be entitled to the APIs under fair use, but the CC has determined that the SSO of APIs are copyrightable. And fair use is yet another can of uncertainty, since usurpation of market share counts negatively to one's case for fair use. ==== In the case of APIs, a competing service can create a functionally identical competing API, but differently structured and organized and named, and then provide a competitor2us.sh script to help their customers migrate.
gpm 7y ago
> Anything that is written down, recorded or filmed automatically receives copyright protection. This is factually untrue. Many things written down, recorded, and filmed do not receive copyright protection in the united states. A common example is recipes. There is extremely good reason to think that APIs specifically fall into the set of things that can not be copyrighted. That's what the original ruling in this case was (overturned on appeal by the federal circuit). That's what a good portion of Google's brief argues.

jhanschoo 7y ago

Regarding the point in the first paragraph: In that case, that is a legislative issue. A judiciary is not empowered to be lenient in their judgment on copyright infringement because of compatibility and lock-in.

gpm 7y ago
Case law strongly disagrees with you on this point. Most relevant to this case is the merger doctrine. Ideas that can be expressed in only a small number of ways are not copyrightable. Even more on point to your comment is the concept of copyright misuse. If you try to use your copyright (a government granted temporary monopoly on the reproduction of your work) to gain monopolies on other things you can not only lose the infringement case but in extreme cases even lose the copyright entirely. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_misuse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_misuse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idea%E2%80%93expression_distinction#Merger_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idea%E2%80%93expression_distin...
- anticensor 7y ago
  > you can not only lose the infringement case but in extreme cases even lose the copyright entirely. Does the work become public domain or government royalty subject in that case? If the latter, it is worse since the government cannot be sued for copyright misuse, either.
  - gpm 7y ago
    Public domain or some state that approximates it (this is really not a well explored area of law and I'm not an expert).
    - anticensor 7y ago
      I asked because government royalty subjects are something extremely (and I consider dangerously) commonplace in Europe.
      - rocqua 7y ago
        Do you have any examples of that? I'm European and don't know what you mean.
        anticensor 7y ago
        Works of government that are copyrighted by the government are called government royalty subjects.
- jhanschoo 7y ago
  > Most relevant to this case is the merger doctrine. Ideas that can be expressed in only a small number of ways are not copyrightable. The CC's opinion is of interest here: > 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. See Apple Computer, Inc. v. Formula Int'l, Inc., 725 F.2d 521, 524 (9th Cir.1984) (quoting National Commission on New Technological Uses of Copyrighted Works, Final Report at 21 (1979) ("CONTU Report") (recognizing that the Copyright Act was designed "to protect all works of authorship from the moment of their fixation in any tangible medium of expression")). The focus is, therefore, on the options that were available to Sun/Oracle at the time it created the API packages. Of course, once Sun/Oracle created "java.lang.Math.max," programmers who want to use that particular package have to call it by that name. But, as the court acknowledged, nothing prevented Google from writing its own declaring code, along with its own implementing code, to achieve the same result. In such circumstances, the chosen expression simply does not merge with the idea being expressed.[7] > copyright misuse Inoperability with customers who have decided to use a service or product or lock-in due to said inoperability itself does not necessarily make the provider of the original service a monopoly. Interoperability arguments have relevance in fair-use, but the courts have yet to determine if Google has a right to the APIs under fair use. Google and others may be entitled to the APIs under fair use, but the CC has determined that the SSO of APIs are copyrightable. And fair use is yet another can of uncertainty, since usurpation of market share counts negatively to one's case for fair use. ==== In the case of APIs, a competing service can create a functionally identical competing API, but differently structured and organized and named, and then provide a competitor2us.sh script to help their customers migrate.

gpm 7y ago

> Anything that is written down, recorded or filmed automatically receives copyright protection. This is factually untrue. Many things written down, recorded, and filmed do not receive copyright protection in the united states. A common example is recipes. There is extremely good reason to think that APIs specifically fall into the set of things that can not be copyrighted. That's what the original ruling in this case was (overturned on appeal by the federal circuit). That's what a good portion of Google's brief argues.