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Wait, in the US APIs are copyrightable but Games aren't? ...

• icebraining 12y ago
  APIs are copyrightable? I don't think so. Oracle lost, after all. However, on the primary copyright issue of the APIs, the court ruled that "So long as the specific code used to implement a method is different, anyone is free under the Copyright Act to write his or her own code to carry out exactly the same function or specification of any methods used in the Java API. It does not matter that the declaration or method header lines are identical." The ruling found that the structure Oracle was claiming was not copyrightable under section 102(b) of the Copyright Act because it was a "system or method of operation."
  • djur 12y ago
    That ruling was overturned on appeal. From the same Wikipedia page: _The appeals court reversed the district court on the central issue, holding that the "structure, sequence and organization" of an API was copyrightable._
• DavidAdams 12y ago
  The game's actual source code would be under copyright, but presumably you could re-write a game and exactly copy its gameplay and that wouldn't be copyright infringement any more than writing a poem using the same meter with different words as a famous poem would infringe.
  • lost_name 12y ago
    > any more than writing a poem using the same meter with different words as a famous poem would infringe This is clearly a rabbit hole of exceptions and ifs, but this somehow doesn't apply to music as well, based on the recent judgement over Blurred Lines (the song).