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Oh interesting. The last piece of news I read was probably the decision before that, that ruled in Oracle's favour. Blame Covid. So is it final, or they can st

Oh interesting. The last piece of news I read was probably the decision before that, that ruled in Oracle's favour. Blame Covid. So is it final, or they can still drag it on? From wikipedia: "Justice Stephen Breyer wrote the majority opinion. Breyer's opinion began with the assumption that the APIs may be copyrightable, and thus proceeded with a review of the four factors that contributed to fair use:" That doesn't look so good.

vidarh 3y ago
It's fairly typical that the court wanted to make the narrowest decision possible. By conclusion that *even under the assumption they _may_ copyrightable, Google didn't violate copyright they saved themselves the hassle of deciding on the copyright issue.
- nottorp 3y ago
  IANAL. So basically the assumption language means there is no rule either that APIs are copyrightable or not, yet... Could have been worse i guess.
  - vidarh 3y ago
    Well. There's no Supreme Court ruling on the copyrightability. The Federal Circuit did hold that APIs are copyrightable, and as far as I understand the Supreme Court carefully avoided deciding whether or not they were right about that. So it's not great, as it does leave the Federal Circuit finding that the APIs were copyrightable standing so far, but as you say it could have been worse - it does not have remotely the same weight.
ender341341 3y ago
My (non-lawyer) take on that is when they say "began with the assumption that the APIs may be copyrightable, and thus proceeded with a review of the four factors that contributed to fair use" is that they're not saying APIs are copyrightable and basically ignored that question because they ruled that even if they are copyrightable googles use would be fair use and oracle doesn't have a case. it's a fairly common method cases are resolved, you say "assuming the plaintiff claims are all true, do they actually have cause of action for a lawsuit?"

vidarh 3y ago

It's fairly typical that the court wanted to make the narrowest decision possible. By conclusion that *even under the assumption they _may_ copyrightable, Google didn't violate copyright they saved themselves the hassle of deciding on the copyright issue.

nottorp 3y ago
IANAL. So basically the assumption language means there is no rule either that APIs are copyrightable or not, yet... Could have been worse i guess.
- vidarh 3y ago
  Well. There's no Supreme Court ruling on the copyrightability. The Federal Circuit did hold that APIs are copyrightable, and as far as I understand the Supreme Court carefully avoided deciding whether or not they were right about that. So it's not great, as it does leave the Federal Circuit finding that the APIs were copyrightable standing so far, but as you say it could have been worse - it does not have remotely the same weight.

ender341341 3y ago

My (non-lawyer) take on that is when they say "began with the assumption that the APIs may be copyrightable, and thus proceeded with a review of the four factors that contributed to fair use" is that they're not saying APIs are copyrightable and basically ignored that question because they ruled that even if they are copyrightable googles use would be fair use and oracle doesn't have a case. it's a fairly common method cases are resolved, you say "assuming the plaintiff claims are all true, do they actually have cause of action for a lawsuit?"