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I understand copyright but I’m not sure an open source library that uses a proprietary API is considered a derivative work. Is there case law here?

by jolux 6y ago

gpm 6y ago
Oh, so the other context here is the Google Oracle lawsuit. In it Oracle is arguing that google implementing portions of the java standard library api in android was copyright infringement. It's due in front of the supreme court October 7th (Wednesday after next). It's... certainly a novel interpretation of what is copyrightable, and if they win it's going to cause quite a few problems (e.g. wine is going to be infringing windows copyright, and windows is going to be infringing Linux's copyright (with WSL and some of their other apis), and so on and so forth. Literally everyone, including oracle (see: sql, cloud apis, etc), has been acting like APIs aren't copyrightable. So anyways, no, no case law (yet) since no one has even established that APIs are copyrightable.
- jolux 6y ago
  I’m aware of that but there are very different details here. They’re not implementing an API compatibility layer, they wrote a one time migration tool. Beyond that in the case of Oracle vs Google the source implementing the API interface was copied directly. WSL, Wine, and SQL do not do this.
  - gpm 6y ago
    > Beyond that in the case of Oracle vs Google the source implementing the API interface was copied directly. This is incorrect. It was not. All* the source was rewritten. * Minus a dozen lines or so, but that was found to be deminimis copying and not copyright infringement. > They’re not implementing an API compatibility layer, they wrote a one time migration tool. Writing a one time migration tool however does involve implementing a version of the API... I'm not sold on this distinguishing feature being of any importance, and I think the onus is on you to make a legal argument for why it is of importance (since proving the non-existence of a valid argument here is basically impossible) Suppose, for example, Google had implemented there vm by creating a one time translation tool that translated java std lib apis to an internal google std lib apis in the bytecode, would that have changed the suit?
    - jolux 6y ago
      I’m not talking about rangeCheck, I’m talking about the code they took from Apache Harmony (37 APIs, something like 12kloc) and the corresponding structure, sequence, and organization of the Java APIs. I don’t feel like relitigating this either as the courts have already decided this was infringing. Also, the de minimis was overturned on appeal. > Writing a one time migration tool however does involve implementing a version of the API No, it doesn’t. It involves calling the API, and translating the data structures it returns to another API. If they provided a function identical to one in the Oracle API that did different things in Postgres, that might be different. >I think the onus is on you to make a legal argument for why it is of importance I’m not a lawyer so any legal argument I make is unlikely to hold water. Instead I will merely suggest that if this project reused 12,000 lines of SQL included in Oracle Database that would probably constitute infringement, but I don’t believe it does include that. > Suppose, for example, Google had implemented there vm by creating a one time translation tool that translated java std lib apis to an internal google std lib apis in the bytecode, would that have changed the suit? I’m not a lawyer, I have no idea and I find counterfactuals mostly uninteresting, especially when the exact details of Oracle vs Google are so frequently glossed over.
      - gpm 6y ago
        > I’m talking about the code they took from Apache Harmony Which Oracle did not own and which Google used with a valid (up to the Apache Harmony code not being infringing by virtue of copying the API) license, I've literally never seen any suggestion that if Google had written this code themselves anything would have changed. > Also, the de minimis was overturned on appeal. Ah, you're right. Either way it's a separate question from the api portion of the case.
        jolux 6y ago
        > I've literally never seen any suggestion that if Google had written this code themselves anything would have changed. That’s not what I’m suggesting. If Google had written it themselves it would have had to have been identical, and that is why it’s infringement. The code is the same in the Android SDK as it is in Harmony and Java SE. It doesn’t matter where they got it from, it’s copyrighted, and the copyright belongs to Oracle. I’m no fan of Oracle, but I also believe that Google has a history of playing fast and loose with copying other people’s technologies and asking for forgiveness later. My overall opinion about the consequences of that case are similar to those expressed in this article: https://www.wired.com/insights/2014/05/non-apocalypse-apis-copyright-fair-use/ https://www.wired.com/insights/2014/05/non-apocalypse-apis-c...

I understand copyright but I’m not sure an open source library that uses a proprietary API is considered a derivative work. Is there case law here?

by jolux 6y ago

I understand copyright but I’m not sure an open source library that uses a proprietary API is considered a derivative work. Is there case law here?

gpm 6y ago

Oh, so the other context here is the Google Oracle lawsuit. In it Oracle is arguing that google implementing portions of the java standard library api in android was copyright infringement. It's due in front of the supreme court October 7th (Wednesday after next). It's... certainly a novel interpretation of what is copyrightable, and if they win it's going to cause quite a few problems (e.g. wine is going to be infringing windows copyright, and windows is going to be infringing Linux's copyright (with WSL and some of their other apis), and so on and so forth. Literally everyone, including oracle (see: sql, cloud apis, etc), has been acting like APIs aren't copyrightable. So anyways, no, no case law (yet) since no one has even established that APIs are copyrightable.

jolux 6y ago
I’m aware of that but there are very different details here. They’re not implementing an API compatibility layer, they wrote a one time migration tool. Beyond that in the case of Oracle vs Google the source implementing the API interface was copied directly. WSL, Wine, and SQL do not do this.
- gpm 6y ago
  > Beyond that in the case of Oracle vs Google the source implementing the API interface was copied directly. This is incorrect. It was not. All* the source was rewritten. * Minus a dozen lines or so, but that was found to be deminimis copying and not copyright infringement. > They’re not implementing an API compatibility layer, they wrote a one time migration tool. Writing a one time migration tool however does involve implementing a version of the API... I'm not sold on this distinguishing feature being of any importance, and I think the onus is on you to make a legal argument for why it is of importance (since proving the non-existence of a valid argument here is basically impossible) Suppose, for example, Google had implemented there vm by creating a one time translation tool that translated java std lib apis to an internal google std lib apis in the bytecode, would that have changed the suit?
  - jolux 6y ago
    I’m not talking about rangeCheck, I’m talking about the code they took from Apache Harmony (37 APIs, something like 12kloc) and the corresponding structure, sequence, and organization of the Java APIs. I don’t feel like relitigating this either as the courts have already decided this was infringing. Also, the de minimis was overturned on appeal. > Writing a one time migration tool however does involve implementing a version of the API No, it doesn’t. It involves calling the API, and translating the data structures it returns to another API. If they provided a function identical to one in the Oracle API that did different things in Postgres, that might be different. >I think the onus is on you to make a legal argument for why it is of importance I’m not a lawyer so any legal argument I make is unlikely to hold water. Instead I will merely suggest that if this project reused 12,000 lines of SQL included in Oracle Database that would probably constitute infringement, but I don’t believe it does include that. > Suppose, for example, Google had implemented there vm by creating a one time translation tool that translated java std lib apis to an internal google std lib apis in the bytecode, would that have changed the suit? I’m not a lawyer, I have no idea and I find counterfactuals mostly uninteresting, especially when the exact details of Oracle vs Google are so frequently glossed over.
    - gpm 6y ago
      > I’m talking about the code they took from Apache Harmony Which Oracle did not own and which Google used with a valid (up to the Apache Harmony code not being infringing by virtue of copying the API) license, I've literally never seen any suggestion that if Google had written this code themselves anything would have changed. > Also, the de minimis was overturned on appeal. Ah, you're right. Either way it's a separate question from the api portion of the case.
      - jolux 6y ago
        > I've literally never seen any suggestion that if Google had written this code themselves anything would have changed. That’s not what I’m suggesting. If Google had written it themselves it would have had to have been identical, and that is why it’s infringement. The code is the same in the Android SDK as it is in Harmony and Java SE. It doesn’t matter where they got it from, it’s copyrighted, and the copyright belongs to Oracle. I’m no fan of Oracle, but I also believe that Google has a history of playing fast and loose with copying other people’s technologies and asking for forgiveness later. My overall opinion about the consequences of that case are similar to those expressed in this article: https://www.wired.com/insights/2014/05/non-apocalypse-apis-copyright-fair-use/ https://www.wired.com/insights/2014/05/non-apocalypse-apis-c...