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I don't think API copyright is recognized, even in the U.S. Logically speaking it shouldn't constitute a copyrightable work, but you never know sometimes. The d
by contravariant 3y ago
I don't think API copyright is recognized, even in the U.S. Logically speaking it shouldn't constitute a copyrightable work, but you never know sometimes. The documentation could be considered copyrightable, though you could just reverse engineer it.
It's kind of the same category as fonts and recipes, which you can figure out by inspection mostly. If you want to protect something like that then a patent might be in order, though let's not get into that mess...
- marcosdumay 3y ago> I don't think API copyright is recognized, even in the U.S. That was what every single person thought right until Oracle won a suit against Google for use of the Java's API.
- jfengel 3y agoAs I recall that was a claim of a byte for byte copy. Google claimed there was no other meaningful way to use the API but the court said that copying the file itself was a step too far.
- contravariant 3y agoI'm confused, all that I can find is that the final decision by the supreme court was that it fell under fair use.
- marcosdumay 3y ago> it fell under fair use What means it's protected by copyrights. Fair use on the US is a murky thing that only large corporations have the legal power to bet on. But the sibling saying it's about the organization of the files may be on point. I remember it being about the organization into packages, but I can easily be wrong here.
- lebuffon 3y agoAPI might go down the road travelled by music in the last 25 years or so. Music used to be a copyright on a melody. Arrangers/producers had nothing. Recorded music now has expanded to have "production rights". This a copyright on the way the released recording "sounds". The recent Ed Sheeran court case is a good example how weird that can get. So APIs could be get there with the right crop of lawyers and court cases. ?