4 ms·

Not so fast. APIs have been copyrightable for more than 20 years. statutory copyright law in the United States and, in particular, the case law of the Ninth C

Not so fast. APIs have been copyrightable for more than 20 years. statutory copyright law in the United States and, in particular, the case law of the Ninth Circuit (and other circuits) already allow copyright holders to claim protection of the structure, sequence and organization of their works. Yes, already. On October 3, 1989, the Ninth Circuit held the following in Johnson Controls v. Phoenix Control Systems: "A computer program is made up of several different components, including the source and object code, the structure, sequence and/or organization of the program, the user interface, and the function, or purpose, of the program. Whether a particular component of a program is protected by a copyright depends on whether it qualifies as an 'expression' of an idea, rather than the idea itself." paragraph 13:"Here, the district court found that the structure, sequence and organization of the JC-5000S was expression, and thus subject to protection. [...] This issue will no doubt be revisited at trial, but at this stage of the proceedings we cannot say that the district court clearly erred." Judge Alsup told Google's counsel that Google had to address the Johnson Controls decision with a view to the Java APIs. http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/886/1173/19079/ http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/886/... http://www.fosspatents.com/2012/05/oracle-v-google-cant-make-apis.html http://www.fosspatents.com/2012/05/oracle-v-google-cant-make...

icelandic 14y ago
the other side of the argument. Google seeks to Europeanize the law of the United States with respect to copyrightability Google tries to counter Oracle's very compelling copyrightability argument, which is very much a Ninth Circuit argument, with inapposite cases from all across the United States and, which is really ridiculous, by pointing Judge Alsup to yesterday's EU Court of Justice opinion on a copyrightability issue under the laws of the European Union. Google even attached the entire ruling (though Judge Alsup could find it on the Internet) to its proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law. If we were talking about a policy debate and a submission to U.S. Congress, this would be a legitimate argument to make. But Judge Alsup doesn't make statutory law. He can do a lot, but he can't turn EU Directive 91/250/EEC on the legal protection of computer programs into U.S. statutory law. Google is now wasting his time by hoping that this EU decision is so extremely persuasive that Judge Alsup will try to legislate from the bench rather than apply Ninth Circuit law -- but the latter, not the former, is his job. http://www.fosspatents.com/2012/05/google-seeks-to-europeanize-law-of.html http://www.fosspatents.com/2012/05/google-seeks-to-europeani...
- magicalist 14y ago
  That's not the other side of the argument, that's Florian's ridiculous assessment that he wrote before the Judge had even read the EU opinion and asked about it specifically in the linked list of questions. Florian's argument relies on his assumption that Alsup doesn't want to be "innovative" with the law, so therefore he must base it on Johnson, which isn't anything like the ironclad logic he's presenting it as. While he likely will want to avoid wandering into new territories, it's been 23 years since Johnson, and many cases (including the ones listed in the linked groklaw article) have touched on very similar areas of IP law. A smoking gun case on APIs is not necessary for there to be applicable precedent. Meanwhile, EU court decisions certainly do indirectly influence judgements in the US, especially on tricky areas with very little precedent. At the very least, in this case it gave Alsup another judge's perspective. The EU does have much more specific laws governing copyright here, but if you read the actual opinion or anything about it (instead of Florian's weird Fox News style mention of it), it goes into specifically why APIs should not be copyrightable and the chilling effects allowing otherwise would cause. The idea that this is a matching game, "find the most similar court case and repeat the verdict" is, again, ridiculous. Finally, stop registering new accounts just to quote Florian at us.
  - icelandic 14y ago
    >especially on tricky areas with very little precedent. "very little precedent"? Judge Alsup specifically told Google's counsel to address the Johnson Controls decision. Judge Alsup told Google's counsel that Google had to address the Johnson Controls decision with a view to the Java APIs. >it's been 23 years since Johnson, and many cases (including the ones listed in the linked groklaw article) have touched on very similar areas of IP law. A smoking gun case on APIs is not necessary for there to be applicable precedent. You are simply wrong on this. Why is a similar case not considered prior applicable precedent? >EU court decisions certainly do indirectly influence judgements in the US. especially on tricky areas with very little precedent. Johnson Controls v. Phoenix Control Systems I don't care if you like Florian or not. look at the facts and decide.
    - magicalist 14y ago
mjg59 14y ago
Maybe it's obvious from some other source, but the judgement description on Justia doesn't really seem to support that. My impression (not a lawyer, haven't done any significant research into the case beyond reading provided links, etc) was that the case was determined based on non-literal copying. If I see the source code for an application and then write my own application that doesn't share code, but does share the overall structure and makes the same design choices, there's an argument that I plagiarised the original software just as much as if I took a novel and rewrote the same story in my own words. That doesn't seem to be true of an API. A program is the embodiment of an idea, ie an expression - the same program can usually be written in a myriad of ways. An API is a functional description of how to interact with that program - there's no way to reimplement that API without it looking identical. An API may require significant design, but design is usually protected by patent law rather than copyright law. So really the case hinges on whether an API is an expression or merely an idea. If the former, then it's copyrightable. If the latter, it's not. Johnson v. Phoenix doesn't seem to give us any insight into that.

icelandic 14y ago

the other side of the argument. Google seeks to Europeanize the law of the United States with respect to copyrightability Google tries to counter Oracle's very compelling copyrightability argument, which is very much a Ninth Circuit argument, with inapposite cases from all across the United States and, which is really ridiculous, by pointing Judge Alsup to yesterday's EU Court of Justice opinion on a copyrightability issue under the laws of the European Union. Google even attached the entire ruling (though Judge Alsup could find it on the Internet) to its proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law. If we were talking about a policy debate and a submission to U.S. Congress, this would be a legitimate argument to make. But Judge Alsup doesn't make statutory law. He can do a lot, but he can't turn EU Directive 91/250/EEC on the legal protection of computer programs into U.S. statutory law. Google is now wasting his time by hoping that this EU decision is so extremely persuasive that Judge Alsup will try to legislate from the bench rather than apply Ninth Circuit law -- but the latter, not the former, is his job. http://www.fosspatents.com/2012/05/google-seeks-to-europeanize-law-of.html http://www.fosspatents.com/2012/05/google-seeks-to-europeani...

magicalist 14y ago
That's not the other side of the argument, that's Florian's ridiculous assessment that he wrote before the Judge had even read the EU opinion and asked about it specifically in the linked list of questions. Florian's argument relies on his assumption that Alsup doesn't want to be "innovative" with the law, so therefore he must base it on Johnson, which isn't anything like the ironclad logic he's presenting it as. While he likely will want to avoid wandering into new territories, it's been 23 years since Johnson, and many cases (including the ones listed in the linked groklaw article) have touched on very similar areas of IP law. A smoking gun case on APIs is not necessary for there to be applicable precedent. Meanwhile, EU court decisions certainly do indirectly influence judgements in the US, especially on tricky areas with very little precedent. At the very least, in this case it gave Alsup another judge's perspective. The EU does have much more specific laws governing copyright here, but if you read the actual opinion or anything about it (instead of Florian's weird Fox News style mention of it), it goes into specifically why APIs should not be copyrightable and the chilling effects allowing otherwise would cause. The idea that this is a matching game, "find the most similar court case and repeat the verdict" is, again, ridiculous. Finally, stop registering new accounts just to quote Florian at us.
- icelandic 14y ago
  >especially on tricky areas with very little precedent. "very little precedent"? Judge Alsup specifically told Google's counsel to address the Johnson Controls decision. Judge Alsup told Google's counsel that Google had to address the Johnson Controls decision with a view to the Java APIs. >it's been 23 years since Johnson, and many cases (including the ones listed in the linked groklaw article) have touched on very similar areas of IP law. A smoking gun case on APIs is not necessary for there to be applicable precedent. You are simply wrong on this. Why is a similar case not considered prior applicable precedent? >EU court decisions certainly do indirectly influence judgements in the US. especially on tricky areas with very little precedent. Johnson Controls v. Phoenix Control Systems I don't care if you like Florian or not. look at the facts and decide.
  - magicalist 14y ago

mjg59 14y ago

Maybe it's obvious from some other source, but the judgement description on Justia doesn't really seem to support that. My impression (not a lawyer, haven't done any significant research into the case beyond reading provided links, etc) was that the case was determined based on non-literal copying. If I see the source code for an application and then write my own application that doesn't share code, but does share the overall structure and makes the same design choices, there's an argument that I plagiarised the original software just as much as if I took a novel and rewrote the same story in my own words. That doesn't seem to be true of an API. A program is the embodiment of an idea, ie an expression - the same program can usually be written in a myriad of ways. An API is a functional description of how to interact with that program - there's no way to reimplement that API without it looking identical. An API may require significant design, but design is usually protected by patent law rather than copyright law. So really the case hinges on whether an API is an expression or merely an idea. If the former, then it's copyrightable. If the latter, it's not. Johnson v. Phoenix doesn't seem to give us any insight into that.