Google and Oracle's decade-long copyright battle reaches Supreme Court(npr.org)
npr.org
Google and Oracle's decade-long copyright battle reaches Supreme Court
https://www.npr.org/2020/10/07/921018204/google-and-oracles-decade-long-copyright-battle-reaches-supreme-court
415 comments
Waiting for Oracle to patent social networks and sue Facebook...
> Those in Oracle's camp say if its copyright is not protected, that will discourage innovation.
Look at the way YouTube Content ID encourages innovation and then imagine GitHub Content ID.
“Your repository contains 3 copyrighted method calls. You’ve been issued a copyright strike.”
I’d love to see every open source repo on the internet go private for 1 day as a demonstration of what could be lost if copyright is allowed to weasel its way into APIs.
GitHub and NPM should give users the option to block their repos for a day. A bazillion failing builds would open some eyes IMO.
Look at the way YouTube Content ID encourages innovation and then imagine GitHub Content ID.
“Your repository contains 3 copyrighted method calls. You’ve been issued a copyright strike.”
I’d love to see every open source repo on the internet go private for 1 day as a demonstration of what could be lost if copyright is allowed to weasel its way into APIs.
GitHub and NPM should give users the option to block their repos for a day. A bazillion failing builds would open some eyes IMO.
> Google argues that no one should be allowed to claim ownership of this kind of code.
Imagine if we took Google's argument seriously and extended it. What if code were inherently less copyrightable when it is more structural and boilerplate-filled? That could be a great thing, but Google themselves might be surprised at how little of their proprietary code qualifies for copyright under this standard.
For example, would Google's protobuf schemata still be copyrightable? They're needed for interoperability, after all. Would Google's client-side code for Youtube and Google Docs still be copyrightable? It's delivered in textual form to the end-user. Would Android's interface code be copyrightable? Probably not, by exactly the same argument that Google has been making before the courts!
If Google wins, then not only does Oracle lose, but the institution of copyright might also lose, which is an exciting proposition.
Imagine if we took Google's argument seriously and extended it. What if code were inherently less copyrightable when it is more structural and boilerplate-filled? That could be a great thing, but Google themselves might be surprised at how little of their proprietary code qualifies for copyright under this standard.
For example, would Google's protobuf schemata still be copyrightable? They're needed for interoperability, after all. Would Google's client-side code for Youtube and Google Docs still be copyrightable? It's delivered in textual form to the end-user. Would Android's interface code be copyrightable? Probably not, by exactly the same argument that Google has been making before the courts!
If Google wins, then not only does Oracle lose, but the institution of copyright might also lose, which is an exciting proposition.
Scotus Blog did a great job describing the case for those who need to know a case preview before it goes up to the Supreme Court:
https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/10/case-preview-justices-to-...
https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/10/case-preview-justices-to-...
I think it is quite likely that we as a society would be better off without any kind of copyright or IP.
This might prevent some of the parties doing huge upfront investments in some of the projects, but if we learned something from OSS and, most importantly, Linux is that gradual and tiny improvements over 30 years can compound to a behemoth that eats any commercial solution for lunch.
This might prevent some of the parties doing huge upfront investments in some of the projects, but if we learned something from OSS and, most importantly, Linux is that gradual and tiny improvements over 30 years can compound to a behemoth that eats any commercial solution for lunch.
Due to the pandemic, we’ll actually be able to hear the arguments and SCOTUS questions live as well. Possibly an acquired taste, but I found the last round of phone hearings very interesting and entertaining.
If this (somehow) succeeds, could IBM sue Oracle over SQL compatibility?
I think we would be better off, if we follow the pharmacy world. Like they have full controls over a new vaccine for x years and then it becomes generic! Problem is that technology space moves so fast that if x year term is say 5-10 years , that would nullify entire process!
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>This is a complete dramatization. Are you copying 10k lines of code from a licensed code base into your project without permission and using it in your commercial product?
To point back to the substance of the thread and Oracle's claims...
Google didn't copy any of Oracle/Sun's Java source code base into Android Java. Oracle lawyers acknowledge this.
Instead, Google copied the API of function name spellings and also the hierarchy of organization (tree of namespaces) of those API methods. I asked about this in a previous comment and some folks more familiar with the case replied with citations of court opinions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7852100
So to give a flippant summary of the current situation: you _can_ copy some exact spellings of API function names (e.g. other browsers Chrome/Firefox/Safari can copy Microsoft IE XMLHttpRequest() exactly without renaming it to RetrieveHttpXtensibleMarkupLang()) -- as long as you don't copy too much of the API surface area. The threshold of "too much" and getting in legal trouble is yet to be determined by The US Supreme Court.
If Oracle ultimately wins, it seems like millions of programmers will have to reach for a thesaurus to find synonyms to name functions. We'll have to waste brain cycles coming up and alternative spellings of methods to stay away from copyright infringement.
To point back to the substance of the thread and Oracle's claims...
Google didn't copy any of Oracle/Sun's Java source code base into Android Java. Oracle lawyers acknowledge this.
Instead, Google copied the API of function name spellings and also the hierarchy of organization (tree of namespaces) of those API methods. I asked about this in a previous comment and some folks more familiar with the case replied with citations of court opinions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7852100
So to give a flippant summary of the current situation: you _can_ copy some exact spellings of API function names (e.g. other browsers Chrome/Firefox/Safari can copy Microsoft IE XMLHttpRequest() exactly without renaming it to RetrieveHttpXtensibleMarkupLang()) -- as long as you don't copy too much of the API surface area. The threshold of "too much" and getting in legal trouble is yet to be determined by The US Supreme Court.
If Oracle ultimately wins, it seems like millions of programmers will have to reach for a thesaurus to find synonyms to name functions. We'll have to waste brain cycles coming up and alternative spellings of methods to stay away from copyright infringement.
APIs shouldn't be copyrightable. European courts got that right.
It's shocking to me that two jury trials spent months considering arguments from lawyers and experts from all sides and carefully came to a decision only to have the appeals court throw that all away and impose the opposite ruling, twice. What was the point of the trials? I don't know why the Federal Circuit court is so biased towards maximalist interpretations of IP law but I really hope the Supreme Court slaps it down hard. Again.
Does anyone have any indication as to how long the ruling will take for this? It's not articulated and this is a very big ruling.
Question: so if Oracle wins, does that mean no one can create compatible APIs in general?
I know a lot of folks have created compatible APIs for Amazon S3, including Oracle themselves.
Does this become against the law if Oracle wins?
https://docs.cloud.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/Object/Task...
I know a lot of folks have created compatible APIs for Amazon S3, including Oracle themselves.
Does this become against the law if Oracle wins?
https://docs.cloud.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/Object/Task...
If Google paid some reasonable sum to SUN for using Java in Android, they could have avoided all of this. I bet their lawsuit expenses are now higher.
I was making an analogy in my mind between API function names and song titles. IANAL but I thought at first that it doesn't make sense to copyright song titles, they are generic and uninteresting most of the time but after giving it further consideration I realized that some can be quite meaningful, for instance everyone recognizes 'Stairway to heaven' and 'Bohemian rhapsody' therefore, even though it seems a bit silly I wouldn't be surprised if those song titles are in fact copyrighted which could mean copyrighting function names is not that different. I then decided to actually google this and found out that:
>Generally, copyright law protection does not extend to song titles because they usually are short and lack sufficient originality. Therefore, you can (and often do) have multiple songs with the same name, and the first to name their song, for example "Crazy," does not have the right to stop other people from releasing their own songs named "Crazy." An exception to this is that some long titles may be found to have sufficient originality to be afforded copyright protection. I suspect that my friend's song entitled "The Concept of the Quantum-Mechanical Bodymind Has Sparked a Great Idea" is one of them. [1]
The whole article from [1] is worth reading. I wouldn't be surprised if the final verdict will be similar to song title laws from the music industry.
[1]: http://www.askamusiclawyer.com/archive/is-my-song-title-prot...
>Generally, copyright law protection does not extend to song titles because they usually are short and lack sufficient originality. Therefore, you can (and often do) have multiple songs with the same name, and the first to name their song, for example "Crazy," does not have the right to stop other people from releasing their own songs named "Crazy." An exception to this is that some long titles may be found to have sufficient originality to be afforded copyright protection. I suspect that my friend's song entitled "The Concept of the Quantum-Mechanical Bodymind Has Sparked a Great Idea" is one of them. [1]
The whole article from [1] is worth reading. I wouldn't be surprised if the final verdict will be similar to song title laws from the music industry.
[1]: http://www.askamusiclawyer.com/archive/is-my-song-title-prot...
If the Supreme Court does not find in favor of Oracle, it could undermine the basis for copyright law entirely. Google copied Oracle's code. The CAFC found, correctly, that API declarations are as expressive and protectable by copyright, as any other code. Therefore, finding that the Java APIs are not covered by copyright, or that copying them was fair use, undermines copyright entirely: if the unique expression of those Java APIs are not protectable by copyright, what is?
I wouldn't be surprised if the decision is very narrow in this case or if it is even postponed again until there is a ninth justice. But I have a bad feeling it will be decided in favor of Oracle, since considering specific APIs part of the "idea" rather than the expression seems to be more of a convention among software engineers rather than actually part of the law. APIs can be "expressions", after all, it just depends on how literal or pedantic you want to be in your reading of the law. The real solution seems like it would be to update the outdated law.
Highly recommend listening to oral arguments once posted on Oyez: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/u-s-supreme-court-oral...
What may throw Oracle for a loop is that Ruth Bader Ginsburg was considered in legal circles to have a strong view of property rights and many people I've read online considered her to be a near-certain vote for Oracle. Her death makes this a much less certain Oracle victory.
To quote The Verge:
"The absolute least important part of Ginsburg’s legacy is that she was the most reliable vote in copyright law cases, tending to vote in favor of rights-holders. Her loss also means that Google v. Oracle is being heard by eight justices and is therefore prone to a split court. (In the 1996 software copyright case Lotus v. Borland, an eight-justice court split evenly and was unable to set national precedent)."
To quote The Verge:
"The absolute least important part of Ginsburg’s legacy is that she was the most reliable vote in copyright law cases, tending to vote in favor of rights-holders. Her loss also means that Google v. Oracle is being heard by eight justices and is therefore prone to a split court. (In the 1996 software copyright case Lotus v. Borland, an eight-justice court split evenly and was unable to set national precedent)."
Oracle is pursuing a dubious interpretation of copyright that puts the entire software industry at risk of chaos. This is deeply irresponsible, and would be irresponsible even if Oracle's theory had a leg to stand on. And nevermind software, allowing Oracle's position to prevail would call into question the legality of every set of facts that are freely used across many knowledge domains.
Time to squash Google's own J++ variant, they can keep playing with Kotlin if they are so keen, and buy JetBrains while at it.
And before the IBM example comes up, SQL is an ISO standard, that Oracle like every RDMS vendor pays for.
And before the IBM example comes up, SQL is an ISO standard, that Oracle like every RDMS vendor pays for.
This author clearly does not understand software
If anyone is interested in hearing:
https://www.c-span.org/video/?469263-1/google-v-oracle-ameri...
https://www.c-span.org/video/?469263-1/google-v-oracle-ameri...
Why does Oracle care so much about Android in the first place? Does it even make any money for Google?
My wish is that this case be decided clearly. Either APIs can be copyrighted, or they cannot. Either outcome has potentially good consequences, for open source in particular.
Obviously if APIs cannot be copyrighted, then a ton of open source work geared towards making things compatible remains viable. Wine is one of the most obvious, but I can think of many others. Efforts to port CUDA code to non-Nvidia hardware. A potential effort to reimplement SwiftUI. And there are many more.
On the other hand, if APIs can be copyrighted, then buyers now know that there's a single-source risk for any API that's not released under a permissive open source license. So, to continue this example, Apple has the legal right to shut down any port of code written in SwiftUI to non-Apple hardware, and similarly for CUDA. This would immediately increase interest in actually open source alternatives; Flutter already exists, a Vulkan based runtime could be developed for TensorFlow, etc.
Sadly, I think this outcome is unlikely. What's more likely is that the ruling will be specific to the facts of the case. That basically means that there won't be clear guidance that you need to run away from proprietary APIs, but also not clear guidance that you can continue to rely on open source interop projects. Rather, any time any of this gets sticky, the only way through the mess will be to pay lawyers millions of dollars. That will have the effect of making it easier for the big players to dominate the market further, and harder for independent people to play. That's very much to the advantage of those in power, so I'm pretty sure that's what we'll see.
Obviously if APIs cannot be copyrighted, then a ton of open source work geared towards making things compatible remains viable. Wine is one of the most obvious, but I can think of many others. Efforts to port CUDA code to non-Nvidia hardware. A potential effort to reimplement SwiftUI. And there are many more.
On the other hand, if APIs can be copyrighted, then buyers now know that there's a single-source risk for any API that's not released under a permissive open source license. So, to continue this example, Apple has the legal right to shut down any port of code written in SwiftUI to non-Apple hardware, and similarly for CUDA. This would immediately increase interest in actually open source alternatives; Flutter already exists, a Vulkan based runtime could be developed for TensorFlow, etc.
Sadly, I think this outcome is unlikely. What's more likely is that the ruling will be specific to the facts of the case. That basically means that there won't be clear guidance that you need to run away from proprietary APIs, but also not clear guidance that you can continue to rely on open source interop projects. Rather, any time any of this gets sticky, the only way through the mess will be to pay lawyers millions of dollars. That will have the effect of making it easier for the big players to dominate the market further, and harder for independent people to play. That's very much to the advantage of those in power, so I'm pretty sure that's what we'll see.
Does oracle actually have any function besides vampirically draining tech companies of money?
I have what's maybe a stupid question, but this is a stupid issue, so let's give it a whirl.
If writing Java programs is okay, but the issue is copying the API, would it be okay to take 10,000 popular Java programs, read through their byte code, and use that to construct a set of classes and functions that those programs would need to run? It would, of course, be a nearly complete subset of the Java API, but it would be produced without any reference to the Java API itself. Instead, it'd be produced simply by examining programs you wanted to support.
If writing Java programs is okay, but the issue is copying the API, would it be okay to take 10,000 popular Java programs, read through their byte code, and use that to construct a set of classes and functions that those programs would need to run? It would, of course, be a nearly complete subset of the Java API, but it would be produced without any reference to the Java API itself. Instead, it'd be produced simply by examining programs you wanted to support.
Oral arguments have already happened: https://www.c-span.org/video/?469263-1/google-v-oracle-ameri...
I wasn't able to listen to all of the arguments, but some general takeaways I had:
* The justices seemed to be asking mostly technical legal questions of Google (e.g., discuss merger doctrine) and mostly doom-and-gloom questions of Oracle (e.g., how does your argument impact QWERTY keyboards?). This suggests to me that they're more in favor of Google's position, and are querying how to arrive at that decision from a legal basis.
* Some of the questions suggest to me that the justices agree with Google's view that declaring code is categorically distinct from implementation code, and perhaps that copyright for the former doesn't exist.
* Thomas had an interesting question that went unanswered: "the four factors to determine fair use are not exhaustive, can you think of any other factors?" (paraphrased).
I wasn't able to listen to all of the arguments, but some general takeaways I had:
* The justices seemed to be asking mostly technical legal questions of Google (e.g., discuss merger doctrine) and mostly doom-and-gloom questions of Oracle (e.g., how does your argument impact QWERTY keyboards?). This suggests to me that they're more in favor of Google's position, and are querying how to arrive at that decision from a legal basis.
* Some of the questions suggest to me that the justices agree with Google's view that declaring code is categorically distinct from implementation code, and perhaps that copyright for the former doesn't exist.
* Thomas had an interesting question that went unanswered: "the four factors to determine fair use are not exhaustive, can you think of any other factors?" (paraphrased).