A good analogy might be the special provisions in copyright law for the design of typefaces. In the US, as I understand it, copyright does not apply to those d

A good analogy might be the special provisions in copyright law for the design of typefaces. In the US, as I understand it, copyright does not apply to those designs, although it can apply to a specific description of the design such as a font file on a computer. This is not because typeface design isn’t a creative activity; clearly it is, and as such the usual arguments for the copyright incentive would apply. However, that must be balanced against the public benefit of being able to communicate unfettered. In the case of typeface designs, the view was taken that the public benefit was more important. It seems to me that a directly analogous argument can be made for APIs in software. While making a good API is certainly skilled creative work, allowing the API to be restricted by copyright would be a huge barrier to interoperability and competition.