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Perhaps I should not have used the recipe analogy as it might be causing unnecessary confusion. But I don't think the situations are all that similar. If an ind

Perhaps I should not have used the recipe analogy as it might be causing unnecessary confusion. But I don't think the situations are all that similar. If an individual recipe is non-copyrightable because it describes a "process, procedure, or method" then a mega-recipe created by combining other recipes together will still be non-copyrightable for the same reason. That's not quite the same thing as curating a set of recipes into a cookbook and thereby exercising creativity in the "selection, coordination, and arrangement" of those recipes.

AnthonyMouse 6y ago
> Perhaps I should not have used the recipe analogy as it might be causing unnecessary confusion. It's hard not to use it when it's the one from the case law. > That's not quite the same thing as curating a set of recipes into a cookbook and thereby exercising creativity in the "selection, coordination, and arrangement" of those recipes. Exercising creativity can't be the hook if recipes have that and aren't copyrightable. You exercise creativity in choosing whether to specify chocolate chips or peanut butter chips or licorice bits etc. APIs have hierarchy, but recipes have that too. You make butter from milk. You make cookies from butter. You make cookie crumb topping from cookies. It's all already there in a recipe without reaching the result you want. You choose chocolate chips over peanut butter chips. You combine them with cookie ingredients to make cookies and brownie ingredients to make brownies. Selection, coordination, and arrangement. But the end result is still just a list of facts about how to make those cookies/brownies. So why look at those things sometimes but not others? Because sometimes it applies to a work of authorship, but sometimes it applies to function, and you can't copyright function. So the functional part shouldn't count. And that's what an API is. It's a formal functional specification. It's a list of facts about how to call those function implementations. It's the exact piece you don't get credit for. Anything required for interoperability, is functional.
- nodamage 6y ago
  > Exercising creativity can't be the hook if recipes have that and aren't copyrightable. Sure, creativity is a requirement but it isn't the only requirement. But think about why a cookbook of selected recipes is copyrightable even if the recipes individually aren't. > And that's what an API is. It's a formal functional specification. The problem for Google is the Java API is also code, which is generally copyrightable. You seem to be saying that since this particular code happens to form a specification it should be treated differently under copyright law, but I'm not sure the court would find that argument very convincing.

AnthonyMouse 6y ago

> Perhaps I should not have used the recipe analogy as it might be causing unnecessary confusion. It's hard not to use it when it's the one from the case law. > That's not quite the same thing as curating a set of recipes into a cookbook and thereby exercising creativity in the "selection, coordination, and arrangement" of those recipes. Exercising creativity can't be the hook if recipes have that and aren't copyrightable. You exercise creativity in choosing whether to specify chocolate chips or peanut butter chips or licorice bits etc. APIs have hierarchy, but recipes have that too. You make butter from milk. You make cookies from butter. You make cookie crumb topping from cookies. It's all already there in a recipe without reaching the result you want. You choose chocolate chips over peanut butter chips. You combine them with cookie ingredients to make cookies and brownie ingredients to make brownies. Selection, coordination, and arrangement. But the end result is still just a list of facts about how to make those cookies/brownies. So why look at those things sometimes but not others? Because sometimes it applies to a work of authorship, but sometimes it applies to function, and you can't copyright function. So the functional part shouldn't count. And that's what an API is. It's a formal functional specification. It's a list of facts about how to call those function implementations. It's the exact piece you don't get credit for. Anything required for interoperability, is functional.

nodamage 6y ago
> Exercising creativity can't be the hook if recipes have that and aren't copyrightable. Sure, creativity is a requirement but it isn't the only requirement. But think about why a cookbook of selected recipes is copyrightable even if the recipes individually aren't. > And that's what an API is. It's a formal functional specification. The problem for Google is the Java API is also code, which is generally copyrightable. You seem to be saying that since this particular code happens to form a specification it should be treated differently under copyright law, but I'm not sure the court would find that argument very convincing.