13 ms·

In English please?

by ohashi 15y ago

In English please?

lomegor 15y ago
Google is claiming that they didn't copyright each of the 37 API separately, and as such that they don't claim ownership of them, thusly, Google can copy them. FTA: "The determination of this issue in favor of Google will either (a) result in the dismissal of the copyright claims or (b) provide the support for Google's de minimis and fair use copying defenses."
grellas 15y ago
Copyright protects expressive works in tangible form. So, a computer language can't be protected because it is an abstraction. But the source code for any implementation of that language can. Here, Oracle is not claiming a copyright in the Java language, nor is it claiming that Google copied any source code (except very insubstantial elements). Oracle claims that the API is protected by copyright and that Google infringed various API elements by copying the structure, etc. in spite of its having done so through a clean-room development. Therefore, Oracle's ultimate copyright claims in the case all turn on its assertion that it can sue upon only a a subset (the API pieces) of the overall copyrighted work (Java) and not the whole work. The other important piece of the analysis is as follows: copyright protection applies automatically as a work is created and takes a tangible means of expression; however, you cannot sue for infringement of a copyright work unless it is registered as a federal copyright with the Copyright Office. The Google motion contends that Oracle registered the entire work (Java) and not any subset of that work. Oracle claims it was registered as a "collective work" and that this gives it the right to sue on a component part of the work only. In its motion, Google says that the work was not registered as a collective work and that Oracle therefore can't - as a matter of law - sue over a component piece only. The motion turns on technical issues but they are ones that would seem to be verifiable one way or the other and thereafter tested under the legal standards just summarized. If the Java registration fails to meet the test, the Oracle loses on its copyright claims as a matter of law (meaning the judge tosses it and it doesn't even go to the jury). This is truly a bombshell and appears to have caught the Oracle attorneys completely off stride. We will see what happens.
- jamroom 15y ago
  I'm probably misunderstanding this, but wouldn't this open the door to allowing someone to copy just portions of a copyrighted work if the work is only copyrighted as a "whole"? Would this require a company (or individual) to copyright every sub system in a larger system? I'm certain I am overlooking something as that seems an unreasonable burden.
  - cheald 15y ago
    The issue here is that Oracle can't assert copyright on the individual pieces because they didn't write them. They were contributed by others. Oracles only copyright is on the work as a whole. To that end, you could go ahead and copy pieces of the copyrighted work, but you would still be subject to lawsuits by the people that wrote the original individual piece. You just wouldn't be subject to lawsuits by Oracle. It's still infringement, but Oracle isn't the infringed party.
    - jamroom 15y ago
      Thank you - that makes sense. I must have glossed over the part that the 37 API's in question were not copyrighted by Oracle. Thanks!
      - telcodud 15y ago
        Actually, 37 packages are in question. See https://twitter.com/#!/CalebGarling/status/195596382982258691 https://twitter.com/#!/CalebGarling/status/19559638298225869...
    - seldo 15y ago
      I was unaware that the APIs were contributed by others. Do you have any idea who might be some of the (theoretical) copyright holders of the individual APIs?
      - foamdino 15y ago
        There is significant code in the Java libraries that was first written by people outside of Sun/Oracle. Back in the Java5 days some APIs provided by Java were simply javax.something wrapped around org.apache code.
Natsu 15y ago
Last Monday, Oracle's lawyers said something that was not true according to their own copyright registration documents. So they're going to be left with either pathetically weak claims of copyright infringement or nothing at all, because most of their arguments were based on a falsehood. This judge in particular hates that sort of thing. TL;DR Oracle shot themselves in the foot. Their claims of copyright infringement are dead or dying.
peeters 15y ago
Here's my take. Google has a list of things that they think can be decreed by the judge rather than the jury as a matter of law, given the evidence presented. 1) You can't claim ownership of the idea (the APIs) rather than the creative writing (the implementation). 2) The API declarations are not copyrightable for the same reason that you can't copyright a short phrase, like "Mary shears sheep." Furthermore, Google needed to be precise in copying the signatures, since changing would lead to incompatibility (with both the programmer's assumptions and their existing Java code). 3) The stuff that Google copied verbatim (or close to verbatim) was negligible. The ONLY thing that Google copied that was actually distributed on a phone was a 9-line function called rangeCheck() that any novice could write. It was only included because Josh Bloch used it when writing an alternative sorting method that he thought would eventually be merged into the Arrays class (where it would have direct access to the original method). Everything else is test classes and a couple of comments. As part of this argument, Google tries to argue that the infringements are negligible with regards to the "work as a whole," which they argue is all of J2SE 5 (as that is how Oracle registered the copyright). I don't think this argument stands up. Oracle cites plenty of previous copyright cases where the judge has considered less than the overarching work as the "work as a whole" (for example, a defendant tried to argue that the article they had copied verbatim from a magazine was a small piece of the work as a whole (the magazine itself), but the judge considered the article itself to be a work. In this case it was still determined that the article was used under fair use provisions however). 4) Google's documentation of the APIs doesn't infringe. First, they are similar in substance because they are talking about the same idea. Programmers have common terminology and ways of talking about ideas (in this case, what a method/class does) that become more similar when you consider the fact they are trying to be succinct and unambiguous. Second, they are similar in organization because they use the Javadoc tool, which automatically generates docs from comments attached to the API declarations themselves. In other words, if the APIs are not seen as infringing, then neither can the Javadoc structure. They should not be considered a separate act of infringement. 5 and 6 were less interesting to me and were more about Google trying to get off on a technicality, so I don't summarize them here.
- taligent 15y ago
  Sorry but I disagree with most of that. An API is hardly just a bunch of short phrases that all programmers use as common parlance. That's That's why Software Architects as a sub-profession exist. Because it requires skill and talent to construct a cohesive, consistent yet technically implementable API. People that actually work against APIs every day know this.

In English please?

by ohashi 15y ago

In English please?

Google is claiming that they didn't copyright each of the 37 API separately, and as such that they don't claim ownership of them, thusly, Google can copy them. FTA: "The determination of this issue in favor of Google will either (a) result in the dismissal of the copyright claims or (b) provide the support for Google's de minimis and fair use copying defenses."

grellas 15y ago

Copyright protects expressive works in tangible form. So, a computer language can't be protected because it is an abstraction. But the source code for any implementation of that language can. Here, Oracle is not claiming a copyright in the Java language, nor is it claiming that Google copied any source code (except very insubstantial elements). Oracle claims that the API is protected by copyright and that Google infringed various API elements by copying the structure, etc. in spite of its having done so through a clean-room development. Therefore, Oracle's ultimate copyright claims in the case all turn on its assertion that it can sue upon only a a subset (the API pieces) of the overall copyrighted work (Java) and not the whole work. The other important piece of the analysis is as follows: copyright protection applies automatically as a work is created and takes a tangible means of expression; however, you cannot sue for infringement of a copyright work unless it is registered as a federal copyright with the Copyright Office. The Google motion contends that Oracle registered the entire work (Java) and not any subset of that work. Oracle claims it was registered as a "collective work" and that this gives it the right to sue on a component part of the work only. In its motion, Google says that the work was not registered as a collective work and that Oracle therefore can't - as a matter of law - sue over a component piece only. The motion turns on technical issues but they are ones that would seem to be verifiable one way or the other and thereafter tested under the legal standards just summarized. If the Java registration fails to meet the test, the Oracle loses on its copyright claims as a matter of law (meaning the judge tosses it and it doesn't even go to the jury). This is truly a bombshell and appears to have caught the Oracle attorneys completely off stride. We will see what happens.

jamroom 15y ago
I'm probably misunderstanding this, but wouldn't this open the door to allowing someone to copy just portions of a copyrighted work if the work is only copyrighted as a "whole"? Would this require a company (or individual) to copyright every sub system in a larger system? I'm certain I am overlooking something as that seems an unreasonable burden.
- cheald 15y ago
  The issue here is that Oracle can't assert copyright on the individual pieces because they didn't write them. They were contributed by others. Oracles only copyright is on the work as a whole. To that end, you could go ahead and copy pieces of the copyrighted work, but you would still be subject to lawsuits by the people that wrote the original individual piece. You just wouldn't be subject to lawsuits by Oracle. It's still infringement, but Oracle isn't the infringed party.
  - jamroom 15y ago
    Thank you - that makes sense. I must have glossed over the part that the 37 API's in question were not copyrighted by Oracle. Thanks!
    - telcodud 15y ago
      Actually, 37 packages are in question. See https://twitter.com/#!/CalebGarling/status/195596382982258691 https://twitter.com/#!/CalebGarling/status/19559638298225869...
  - seldo 15y ago
    I was unaware that the APIs were contributed by others. Do you have any idea who might be some of the (theoretical) copyright holders of the individual APIs?
    - foamdino 15y ago
      There is significant code in the Java libraries that was first written by people outside of Sun/Oracle. Back in the Java5 days some APIs provided by Java were simply javax.something wrapped around org.apache code.

Natsu 15y ago

Last Monday, Oracle's lawyers said something that was not true according to their own copyright registration documents. So they're going to be left with either pathetically weak claims of copyright infringement or nothing at all, because most of their arguments were based on a falsehood. This judge in particular hates that sort of thing. TL;DR Oracle shot themselves in the foot. Their claims of copyright infringement are dead or dying.

peeters 15y ago

Here's my take. Google has a list of things that they think can be decreed by the judge rather than the jury as a matter of law, given the evidence presented. 1) You can't claim ownership of the idea (the APIs) rather than the creative writing (the implementation). 2) The API declarations are not copyrightable for the same reason that you can't copyright a short phrase, like "Mary shears sheep." Furthermore, Google needed to be precise in copying the signatures, since changing would lead to incompatibility (with both the programmer's assumptions and their existing Java code). 3) The stuff that Google copied verbatim (or close to verbatim) was negligible. The ONLY thing that Google copied that was actually distributed on a phone was a 9-line function called rangeCheck() that any novice could write. It was only included because Josh Bloch used it when writing an alternative sorting method that he thought would eventually be merged into the Arrays class (where it would have direct access to the original method). Everything else is test classes and a couple of comments. As part of this argument, Google tries to argue that the infringements are negligible with regards to the "work as a whole," which they argue is all of J2SE 5 (as that is how Oracle registered the copyright). I don't think this argument stands up. Oracle cites plenty of previous copyright cases where the judge has considered less than the overarching work as the "work as a whole" (for example, a defendant tried to argue that the article they had copied verbatim from a magazine was a small piece of the work as a whole (the magazine itself), but the judge considered the article itself to be a work. In this case it was still determined that the article was used under fair use provisions however). 4) Google's documentation of the APIs doesn't infringe. First, they are similar in substance because they are talking about the same idea. Programmers have common terminology and ways of talking about ideas (in this case, what a method/class does) that become more similar when you consider the fact they are trying to be succinct and unambiguous. Second, they are similar in organization because they use the Javadoc tool, which automatically generates docs from comments attached to the API declarations themselves. In other words, if the APIs are not seen as infringing, then neither can the Javadoc structure. They should not be considered a separate act of infringement. 5 and 6 were less interesting to me and were more about Google trying to get off on a technicality, so I don't summarize them here.

taligent 15y ago
Sorry but I disagree with most of that. An API is hardly just a bunch of short phrases that all programmers use as common parlance. That's That's why Software Architects as a sub-profession exist. Because it requires skill and talent to construct a cohesive, consistent yet technically implementable API. People that actually work against APIs every day know this.