10 ms·

Oracle: why 9 lines of rangeCheck code is copyright infringement

68 points by grellas 14y ago

Cushman 14y ago
> Josh Bloch, who wrote rangeCheck, testified that “[a]ny competent high school programmer could write” that method. RT 815:13-16 (Bloch). Even Oracle’s expert Dr. Mitchell conceded that “a good high school programmer” could write rangeCheck with guidance. RT 1316:24-25 (Mitchell). Maybe this whole misunderstanding comes from the fact that Oracle just thinks programming is a lot harder than it is.
- kalleboo 14y ago
  I agree that rangeCheck is trivial and needn't be protected, but I'm not sure I understand the "high school programmer" argument. A highschooler could also write Rebecca Black's "Friday" (indeed, one did), but it's still protected by copyright. Is any code written by a High School student automatically uncopyrightable?
  - krickle 14y ago
    You are correct, but I think in this case there are only so many different ways to write a range check function, and probably a few obvious ones. If you get 100 programmers to write a range check, there will be a lot more overlap than if you get 100 songwriters to write a chorus... even if they are teenagers.
  - dalke 14y ago
    No, of course not. The legal argument here is to determine if these lines fall under a de minimus exception. Quoting: "Courts find a use de minimis only if it is both quantitatively and qualitatively insignificant." As there's only 9 lines of code, that's quantitatively small. The continual references to 'high school programmer' is to argue that it's also qualitatively small. Hence, de minimus.
  - avar 14y ago
    Well that's about as far from a valid analogy as you're likely to get. Rebecca Black's "Friday" is the entire work, and if you told any high school student "write me a song" they'd probably never come up with that exact song. But something like the rangeCheck function is what you'd get if you asked a junior programmer "before you're going to access that datastructure make sure your within its range". Furthermore it's a completely irrelevant part of Android as a whole which gave Google no competitive advantage whatsoever.
  - chc 14y ago
    Did you read the article? It explains this in detail. A couple of things here. First, trivial bits of a work with minimal creative expression are not covered by copyright. This sort of thing is called "de minimis". You can't assert copyright, for example, on the words "You're welcome" just because they appeared in a work you've copyrighted. If you could, you'd certainly be rich, but that kind of rent seeking is a little beyond the purpose of copyright. Rebecca Black's "Friday", as awful as it may be, is full of creative expression. Google is arguing that rangeCheck is extremely minimal and perfunctory, kind of like if it were accused of copying the word "Partying" from Rebecca Black. Second, IIRC Oracle is making a big deal out of this copying. Google was willing to pay a statuory fee for its indiscretion just like it would if it had actually used a trivial function from a high schooler, but Oracle is trying to make this function out to be a difficult and important part of Java, meaning it deserves a share of Google's profits.
  - mikeash 14y ago
    The point is not that it could be written by a high schooler once, but that, given the same constraints, it could be written by a high schooler again without ever having seen the original. If I could give you a vague description of "Friday" and you could immediately go and produce the exact lyrics and melody that Black did, I'd say it wouldn't deserve copyright protection either. Of course, "Friday" is far more complex than that.
  - aaronbrethorst 14y ago
    > A highschooler could also write Rebecca Black's "Friday" (indeed, one did) Actually, the song was created by ARK Music Factory, as described on their Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARK_Music_Factory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARK_Music_Factory Rebecca Black's parents paid a couple thousand bucks for the privilege of having their daughter sing it and make a music video around it.
  - rbanffy 14y ago
    > A highschooler could also write Rebecca Black's "Friday" (indeed, one did) I doubt that a) Rebecca Black came out with it in two minutes and b) hers is the most obvious implementation of "song".
  - oh_sigh 14y ago
    You either didn't read the article, or didn't understand it.
- avar 14y ago
  There isn't a misunderstanding, Oracle initially made a lot of other copyright and patent claims which were thrown out by the court. Now instead of just yielding the case they've fallen back on arguing that they should be awarded for the copying of a trivial function that any programmer could have written in 2 minutes.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
    And even 2 minutes is a stretch.
  - pbhjpbhj 14y ago
    >they should be awarded for the copying of a trivial function that any programmer could have written in 2 minutes // The crucial question with copyright is "did they copy it". If it's a trivial portion of code that anyone could have written then why go out of your way (assuming the rest of it is not copied) to copy that particular part. If indeed it is not copied then Oracle will not be able to show it was, not even on the balance of probabilities [that's used in civil tort cases in the UK I gather, not sure of the measure applicable here]. It appears to be a bug in the statute if the test is whether the copied part is de minimis. The UK statute IIRC specifies that it must not be a 'significant part', which seems to lean more to qualitative considerations than quantitative ones.
    - usea 14y ago
      It's my understanding that copyright isn't primarily concerned with whether you were looking at the original when you produced the same work. It may be a factor in some cases, but the primary concern is similarity. If the works are the same, the latter work infringes regardless of access to the original. For example, if you write a song which is substantially similar to another song released some time before your own, you've infringed even if you'd never heard the prior work. edit: apparently I am mistaken[1] on this point. My apologies. The point with this particular code is it's so obvious that many (most?) programmers would come up with the exact same code when given the task. It's part of the bigger picture that code isn't prose, it's instructions. How do you accomplish this task in this given system? First A, then B, then C. The first person to give some simple set of instructions should not be the only one allowed to. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substantial_similarity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substantial_similarity
- tankbot 14y ago
  > Even Oracle’s expert Dr. Mitchell conceded that “a good high school programmer” could write rangeCheck with guidance. RT 1316:24-25 (Mitchell). Nonsense. In HS I wrote my first 3d graphics engine in Pascal on a 80286 with a Hercules graphics card and a monochrome monitor. As a sophomore. Of course I had guidance to get to that level but no programming student past intro would need any help for rangeCheck. rangeCheck is trivial. Any non-programmer could have written it as the first thing they ever created if they had a book next to them. At this point Oracle's claims are asinine. The whole thing would be laughable if it wasn't such a huge waste of time/money.
- smsm42 14y ago
  They don't think that. They're just grasping at straws. Now that their efforts to show reasonable evidence that Google infringed on something substantial from them failed, they grasp at the last piece of remaining evidence and intend to ride this to the bitter end. And, of course, since it's all billable hours, the longer and stupider the argument becomes, the better. If they need to spend a year in the court arguing about if rangeCheck has enough characters to be copyrightable, it's all win for the lawyers, as the alternative is to admit the defeat and look for another client wanting to lose a copyright case. Why Oracle continues to pay for this circus is less understandable, but I guess they're just too committed to it to just say "OK, we give up, all our claims turned out to be nothing but baloney, thanks for playing". I guess they want even the tiniest bit of win to be able to claim they didn't do it for nothing.
batgaijin 14y ago
Who supports Groklaw? What are the goals of the financial backers? I hate Oracle as much as anyone else here, but I refuse to support Groklaw. Patents and copyrights are very important for the fate of mankind, and I will not start trusting anonymous reporting and support of Groklaw just because Oracle is getting called out as an asshole atm.
- magicalist 14y ago
  1) PJ hasn't been anonymous for years now. 2) There are anonymous blog posts submitted to HN every day, which you appear to never have had a problem with. Why this one? 3) If you have an argument why "patents and copyrights are very important for the fate of mankind", and somehow this particular copyright case is a bellwether for that fate, make it. Otherwise there is no substance to your post, just blind assertions (and anonymous ones, at that :).
  - batgaijin 14y ago
    1). But is PJ actually writing these articles? Or is PJ just publishing them? Is that a stupid allegation to make, or are people scared of mentioning that? Are other corporations actively supporting her? To what degree? Financially, for hosting the site? Sources? Evidence? Opinions? 2). None are held with the same esteem as Groklaw, which I know most people default to for current news about patents and copyrights. What isn't being covered by Groklaw? I'm not smart enough to answer that, and I doubt few here are. Is that something to be worried about? We are all trusting an expert which few people here can call out. 3). You are right, there is nothing special about this copyright case in particular. However, I do have a problem with the level of trust that Groklaw receives from the rest of the community. I have supported everything Groklaw has done to this point; however, I am severely worried about the lack of competition when it comes to giving the same level of reporting. One perspective is always bad.
    - logjam 14y ago
      > ...I refuse to support Groklaw... will not start trusting anonymous reporting and support of Groklaw > I have supported everything Groklaw has done to this point. Kindly do two things for us: stop talking out of both sides of your mouth, and, instead of ineffectually waving your hands, point to specifically what Groklaw got wrong on this issue.
michaelhoffman 14y ago
The judge in this case writes computer programs, and has already made statements that indicate that this line of argument is going to be a loser. I don't know why Oracle is persisting. > Judge: I have done, and still do, a significant amount of programming in other languages. I've written blocks of code like rangeCheck a hundred times before. I could do it, you could do it. The idea that someone would copy that when they could do it themselves just as fast, it was an accident. There's no way you could say that was speeding them along to the marketplace. You're one of the best lawyers in America, how could you even make that kind of argument? Then: > Judge: rangeCheck! All it does is make sure the numbers you're inputting are within a range, and gives them some sort of exceptional treatment. That witness, when he said a high school student could do it-- http://www.i-programmer.info/news/193-android/4224-oracle-v-google-judge-is-a-programmer.html http://www.i-programmer.info/news/193-android/4224-oracle-v-...
- ZeroGravitas 14y ago
  The judge was even more scathing in the judgement on this particular point but I can't seem to Google up the PDF where he says it.
Zenst 14y ago
Range checks on a input feild were one of many simple exercises in learning computer programming at educational institutes that pre-date Oracle. It is lamentable that education can be copyrighted and be used to sell popcorn.
quink 14y ago
I just thought of an awful analogy: A builder is suing another builder in the next state over for stealing his plans and constructing a house following them. Used by Oracle as evidence is that someone swung a hammer three times in the garage in a row in the same way someone else swung a hammer three times in a row, which produced two nails hammered in in exactly the same way.
dspeyer 14y ago
I thought Oracle had agreed to $0 in damages for the rangeCheck copyright infringement ( http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9228298/Oracle_agrees_to_zero_damages_in_Google_lawsuit_eyes_appeal http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9228298/Oracle_agrees... ) so they could get on with appealing the API copyrightability and the patents. Why are they arguing about it now. Did I miss a step?
keymone 14y ago
so is "int i;" in my programs a copyright infringement?

68 points by grellas 14y ago

> Josh Bloch, who wrote rangeCheck, testified that “[a]ny competent high school programmer could write” that method. RT 815:13-16 (Bloch). Even Oracle’s expert Dr. Mitchell conceded that “a good high school programmer” could write rangeCheck with guidance. RT 1316:24-25 (Mitchell). Maybe this whole misunderstanding comes from the fact that Oracle just thinks programming is a lot harder than it is.

kalleboo 14y ago
I agree that rangeCheck is trivial and needn't be protected, but I'm not sure I understand the "high school programmer" argument. A highschooler could also write Rebecca Black's "Friday" (indeed, one did), but it's still protected by copyright. Is any code written by a High School student automatically uncopyrightable?
- krickle 14y ago
  You are correct, but I think in this case there are only so many different ways to write a range check function, and probably a few obvious ones. If you get 100 programmers to write a range check, there will be a lot more overlap than if you get 100 songwriters to write a chorus... even if they are teenagers.
- dalke 14y ago
  No, of course not. The legal argument here is to determine if these lines fall under a de minimus exception. Quoting: "Courts find a use de minimis only if it is both quantitatively and qualitatively insignificant." As there's only 9 lines of code, that's quantitatively small. The continual references to 'high school programmer' is to argue that it's also qualitatively small. Hence, de minimus.
- avar 14y ago
  Well that's about as far from a valid analogy as you're likely to get. Rebecca Black's "Friday" is the entire work, and if you told any high school student "write me a song" they'd probably never come up with that exact song. But something like the rangeCheck function is what you'd get if you asked a junior programmer "before you're going to access that datastructure make sure your within its range". Furthermore it's a completely irrelevant part of Android as a whole which gave Google no competitive advantage whatsoever.
- chc 14y ago
  Did you read the article? It explains this in detail. A couple of things here. First, trivial bits of a work with minimal creative expression are not covered by copyright. This sort of thing is called "de minimis". You can't assert copyright, for example, on the words "You're welcome" just because they appeared in a work you've copyrighted. If you could, you'd certainly be rich, but that kind of rent seeking is a little beyond the purpose of copyright. Rebecca Black's "Friday", as awful as it may be, is full of creative expression. Google is arguing that rangeCheck is extremely minimal and perfunctory, kind of like if it were accused of copying the word "Partying" from Rebecca Black. Second, IIRC Oracle is making a big deal out of this copying. Google was willing to pay a statuory fee for its indiscretion just like it would if it had actually used a trivial function from a high schooler, but Oracle is trying to make this function out to be a difficult and important part of Java, meaning it deserves a share of Google's profits.
- mikeash 14y ago
  The point is not that it could be written by a high schooler once, but that, given the same constraints, it could be written by a high schooler again without ever having seen the original. If I could give you a vague description of "Friday" and you could immediately go and produce the exact lyrics and melody that Black did, I'd say it wouldn't deserve copyright protection either. Of course, "Friday" is far more complex than that.
- aaronbrethorst 14y ago
  > A highschooler could also write Rebecca Black's "Friday" (indeed, one did) Actually, the song was created by ARK Music Factory, as described on their Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARK_Music_Factory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARK_Music_Factory Rebecca Black's parents paid a couple thousand bucks for the privilege of having their daughter sing it and make a music video around it.
- rbanffy 14y ago
  > A highschooler could also write Rebecca Black's "Friday" (indeed, one did) I doubt that a) Rebecca Black came out with it in two minutes and b) hers is the most obvious implementation of "song".
- oh_sigh 14y ago
  You either didn't read the article, or didn't understand it.
avar 14y ago
There isn't a misunderstanding, Oracle initially made a lot of other copyright and patent claims which were thrown out by the court. Now instead of just yielding the case they've fallen back on arguing that they should be awarded for the copying of a trivial function that any programmer could have written in 2 minutes.
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
  And even 2 minutes is a stretch.
- pbhjpbhj 14y ago
  >they should be awarded for the copying of a trivial function that any programmer could have written in 2 minutes // The crucial question with copyright is "did they copy it". If it's a trivial portion of code that anyone could have written then why go out of your way (assuming the rest of it is not copied) to copy that particular part. If indeed it is not copied then Oracle will not be able to show it was, not even on the balance of probabilities [that's used in civil tort cases in the UK I gather, not sure of the measure applicable here]. It appears to be a bug in the statute if the test is whether the copied part is de minimis. The UK statute IIRC specifies that it must not be a 'significant part', which seems to lean more to qualitative considerations than quantitative ones.
  - usea 14y ago
    It's my understanding that copyright isn't primarily concerned with whether you were looking at the original when you produced the same work. It may be a factor in some cases, but the primary concern is similarity. If the works are the same, the latter work infringes regardless of access to the original. For example, if you write a song which is substantially similar to another song released some time before your own, you've infringed even if you'd never heard the prior work. edit: apparently I am mistaken[1] on this point. My apologies. The point with this particular code is it's so obvious that many (most?) programmers would come up with the exact same code when given the task. It's part of the bigger picture that code isn't prose, it's instructions. How do you accomplish this task in this given system? First A, then B, then C. The first person to give some simple set of instructions should not be the only one allowed to. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substantial_similarity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substantial_similarity
tankbot 14y ago
> Even Oracle’s expert Dr. Mitchell conceded that “a good high school programmer” could write rangeCheck with guidance. RT 1316:24-25 (Mitchell). Nonsense. In HS I wrote my first 3d graphics engine in Pascal on a 80286 with a Hercules graphics card and a monochrome monitor. As a sophomore. Of course I had guidance to get to that level but no programming student past intro would need any help for rangeCheck. rangeCheck is trivial. Any non-programmer could have written it as the first thing they ever created if they had a book next to them. At this point Oracle's claims are asinine. The whole thing would be laughable if it wasn't such a huge waste of time/money.
smsm42 14y ago
They don't think that. They're just grasping at straws. Now that their efforts to show reasonable evidence that Google infringed on something substantial from them failed, they grasp at the last piece of remaining evidence and intend to ride this to the bitter end. And, of course, since it's all billable hours, the longer and stupider the argument becomes, the better. If they need to spend a year in the court arguing about if rangeCheck has enough characters to be copyrightable, it's all win for the lawyers, as the alternative is to admit the defeat and look for another client wanting to lose a copyright case. Why Oracle continues to pay for this circus is less understandable, but I guess they're just too committed to it to just say "OK, we give up, all our claims turned out to be nothing but baloney, thanks for playing". I guess they want even the tiniest bit of win to be able to claim they didn't do it for nothing.

batgaijin 14y ago

Who supports Groklaw? What are the goals of the financial backers? I hate Oracle as much as anyone else here, but I refuse to support Groklaw. Patents and copyrights are very important for the fate of mankind, and I will not start trusting anonymous reporting and support of Groklaw just because Oracle is getting called out as an asshole atm.

magicalist 14y ago
1) PJ hasn't been anonymous for years now. 2) There are anonymous blog posts submitted to HN every day, which you appear to never have had a problem with. Why this one? 3) If you have an argument why "patents and copyrights are very important for the fate of mankind", and somehow this particular copyright case is a bellwether for that fate, make it. Otherwise there is no substance to your post, just blind assertions (and anonymous ones, at that :).
- batgaijin 14y ago
  1). But is PJ actually writing these articles? Or is PJ just publishing them? Is that a stupid allegation to make, or are people scared of mentioning that? Are other corporations actively supporting her? To what degree? Financially, for hosting the site? Sources? Evidence? Opinions? 2). None are held with the same esteem as Groklaw, which I know most people default to for current news about patents and copyrights. What isn't being covered by Groklaw? I'm not smart enough to answer that, and I doubt few here are. Is that something to be worried about? We are all trusting an expert which few people here can call out. 3). You are right, there is nothing special about this copyright case in particular. However, I do have a problem with the level of trust that Groklaw receives from the rest of the community. I have supported everything Groklaw has done to this point; however, I am severely worried about the lack of competition when it comes to giving the same level of reporting. One perspective is always bad.
  - logjam 14y ago
    > ...I refuse to support Groklaw... will not start trusting anonymous reporting and support of Groklaw > I have supported everything Groklaw has done to this point. Kindly do two things for us: stop talking out of both sides of your mouth, and, instead of ineffectually waving your hands, point to specifically what Groklaw got wrong on this issue.

michaelhoffman 14y ago

The judge in this case writes computer programs, and has already made statements that indicate that this line of argument is going to be a loser. I don't know why Oracle is persisting. > Judge: I have done, and still do, a significant amount of programming in other languages. I've written blocks of code like rangeCheck a hundred times before. I could do it, you could do it. The idea that someone would copy that when they could do it themselves just as fast, it was an accident. There's no way you could say that was speeding them along to the marketplace. You're one of the best lawyers in America, how could you even make that kind of argument? Then: > Judge: rangeCheck! All it does is make sure the numbers you're inputting are within a range, and gives them some sort of exceptional treatment. That witness, when he said a high school student could do it-- http://www.i-programmer.info/news/193-android/4224-oracle-v-google-judge-is-a-programmer.html http://www.i-programmer.info/news/193-android/4224-oracle-v-...

ZeroGravitas 14y ago
The judge was even more scathing in the judgement on this particular point but I can't seem to Google up the PDF where he says it.

Zenst 14y ago

Range checks on a input feild were one of many simple exercises in learning computer programming at educational institutes that pre-date Oracle. It is lamentable that education can be copyrighted and be used to sell popcorn.

quink 14y ago

I just thought of an awful analogy: A builder is suing another builder in the next state over for stealing his plans and constructing a house following them. Used by Oracle as evidence is that someone swung a hammer three times in the garage in a row in the same way someone else swung a hammer three times in a row, which produced two nails hammered in in exactly the same way.

dspeyer 14y ago

I thought Oracle had agreed to $0 in damages for the rangeCheck copyright infringement ( http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9228298/Oracle_agrees_to_zero_damages_in_Google_lawsuit_eyes_appeal http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9228298/Oracle_agrees... ) so they could get on with appealing the API copyrightability and the patents. Why are they arguing about it now. Did I miss a step?

keymone 14y ago