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> They produced a better product, and the market rewarded them for that. You could make that same argument about patents in general, couldn't you? If you inven

> They produced a better product, and the market rewarded them for that. You could make that same argument about patents in general, couldn't you? If you invent something, say, a new battery, and somebody else copies it, doesn't have your R&D-costs invested and prices it accordingly lower than you, the market will "reward them" by buying from them instead of you, they're getting the same thing after all. We do want some stability though, if you invest money to create something and somebody immediately copies it, you're not going to invest money again. We want you to invest money to advance humanity with new technology and knowledge though. Since there's no re-implementation without looking at the original, it feels sufficiently close to taking your buddy's homework and saying "no worries, I will change it a bit" and you'll have Math.add(a, b) and while they wrote return a + b;, you'll write return b + a;, you're not copying after all.

cloverich 6y ago
> say, a new battery It would be more about copying the batteries terminal structure, such that you could build products compatible with the battery or a battery compatible with the products. It snot about copying the battery, its about supporting interoperability. That's what is at risk here. Sixty seven different kinds of outlets, or arbitrarily expensive ones where the "design" itself is licesned, instead of the code.
- pdonis 6y ago
  > its about supporting interoperability I think this is a very important point. I haven't read all of the briefs in this case, or looked at the arguments presented at the hearing, so I don't know if Google's lawyers stressed this point, but they sure ought to.
  - az226 6y ago
    Google would lose if they would continue hammering the interop point and the justices would dig deeper. Google only copied a selective set of Oracle's Java libraries. If they were about interop, they would have copied all of them. So no, Google didn't copy the libraries because of interoperability reasons. Google copied them so they would get access to the large developer community and ride the coattails of the successful investments into the Java platform that Oracle made. As one of the justices said, it's a one-way interoperability.
    - tylerchr 6y ago
      > Google copied them so they would get access to the large developer community and ride the coattails of the successful investments into the Java platform that Oracle made. I like this framing and think it’s entirely correct, but I don’t agree that it necessarily dooms the interoperability argument. Google wasn’t trying to achieve compatibility with existing code (for which, you’re right, they’d have needed to take the whole set) but rather compatibility with existing developers. Arguably, that is still interoperability.
      - az226 6y ago
        I see your point. But because it would be interoperable with the developers and not the end users, so it’s still no dice for Google. The QWERTY keyboard is a good example of interoperability with end users (but not of copyright itself). So the courts would not give weight to that aspect.
segfaultbuserr 6y ago
> If you invent something, say, a new battery, and somebody else copies it, You should distinguish the concepts of copyright and patent. A hardware design, like a battery, is not copyrightable in general. The technical drawings or a written description can be copyrighted, but the abstract technology and process cannot. Under copyright laws, it's illegal for me to duplicate your documents, but there is nothing to stop me from reverse-engineering or duplicating the same process or hardware [0], and I'm also allowed to write about this technology in my own words. Only patent laws can grant a period of exclusive control of an abstract technology to its inventors. [0] If I obtained your documents illegally, it would be trade secret infringement, which is an independent issue from copyright nor patent.
- luckylion 6y ago
  Sure, patents are a different thing, but they serve a similar purpose. "If you don't have to to the research and invest in creating the technology by copying, you can do it cheaper which the market will reward" is what both copyright and patents are created to change.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    They don't serve a similar purpose. Copyright protects authorship. Patents protect against reinvention. It's clear that Oracle needs a patent unless Google outright stole the standard library.
    - az226 6y ago
      News at 11, they did. In seriousness, they didn’t copy the libraries just once, but at least 3 times over time as Oracle continued to make investments in changes and additions to the libraries.

cloverich 6y ago

> say, a new battery It would be more about copying the batteries terminal structure, such that you could build products compatible with the battery or a battery compatible with the products. It snot about copying the battery, its about supporting interoperability. That's what is at risk here. Sixty seven different kinds of outlets, or arbitrarily expensive ones where the "design" itself is licesned, instead of the code.

pdonis 6y ago
> its about supporting interoperability I think this is a very important point. I haven't read all of the briefs in this case, or looked at the arguments presented at the hearing, so I don't know if Google's lawyers stressed this point, but they sure ought to.
- az226 6y ago
  Google would lose if they would continue hammering the interop point and the justices would dig deeper. Google only copied a selective set of Oracle's Java libraries. If they were about interop, they would have copied all of them. So no, Google didn't copy the libraries because of interoperability reasons. Google copied them so they would get access to the large developer community and ride the coattails of the successful investments into the Java platform that Oracle made. As one of the justices said, it's a one-way interoperability.
  - tylerchr 6y ago
    > Google copied them so they would get access to the large developer community and ride the coattails of the successful investments into the Java platform that Oracle made. I like this framing and think it’s entirely correct, but I don’t agree that it necessarily dooms the interoperability argument. Google wasn’t trying to achieve compatibility with existing code (for which, you’re right, they’d have needed to take the whole set) but rather compatibility with existing developers. Arguably, that is still interoperability.
    - az226 6y ago
      I see your point. But because it would be interoperable with the developers and not the end users, so it’s still no dice for Google. The QWERTY keyboard is a good example of interoperability with end users (but not of copyright itself). So the courts would not give weight to that aspect.

segfaultbuserr 6y ago

> If you invent something, say, a new battery, and somebody else copies it, You should distinguish the concepts of copyright and patent. A hardware design, like a battery, is not copyrightable in general. The technical drawings or a written description can be copyrighted, but the abstract technology and process cannot. Under copyright laws, it's illegal for me to duplicate your documents, but there is nothing to stop me from reverse-engineering or duplicating the same process or hardware [0], and I'm also allowed to write about this technology in my own words. Only patent laws can grant a period of exclusive control of an abstract technology to its inventors. [0] If I obtained your documents illegally, it would be trade secret infringement, which is an independent issue from copyright nor patent.

luckylion 6y ago
Sure, patents are a different thing, but they serve a similar purpose. "If you don't have to to the research and invest in creating the technology by copying, you can do it cheaper which the market will reward" is what both copyright and patents are created to change.
- imtringued 6y ago
  They don't serve a similar purpose. Copyright protects authorship. Patents protect against reinvention. It's clear that Oracle needs a patent unless Google outright stole the standard library.
  - az226 6y ago
    News at 11, they did. In seriousness, they didn’t copy the libraries just once, but at least 3 times over time as Oracle continued to make investments in changes and additions to the libraries.