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.
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.
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.
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.
>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.
> "very little precedent"? Judge Alsup specifically told Google's counsel to address the Johnson Controls decision.
Yes, and Alsup just asked Google and Oracle to address the EU decision on SAS v. WPL. They've both addressed many other relevant cases. Is this what we're going on?
> You are simply wrong on this. Why is a similar case not considered prior applicable precedent?
That was not what I wrote. What I said was that Johnson is not the only applicable precedent and that it was ridiculous to suggest otherwise.
Meanwhile, EU court decisions certainly do indirectly influence judgements in the US, especially on tricky areas with very little precedent.
I would say that logical arguments influence his decision, not "the EU court said this so..." As for being 23 years, it doesn't matter, a US Supreme court decision from the 1800's is precedent.
> I would say that logical arguments influence his decision, not "the EU court said this so..."
Well, that's what I said (I even couched my "influenced" with "indirectly"), but foreign opinions are cited as persuasive precedent at times. I have no idea what Alsup's track record is with that.
> As for being 23 years, it doesn't matter, a US Supreme court decision from the 1800's is precedent.
Certainly. As I wrote it, that was the introduction to suggesting that there has been plenty of time for applicable cases, even if none are a smoking gun for the copyrightable status of APIs.
I am very ambivalent to this issue of Oracle vs Google.
On one hand I'd like Oracle to lose, because what's the point of touting Java as free and releasing open jdk, if you then go around and sue other companies. Legal issues aside (I am not a lawyer), I feel this 'copyrightable API' is stupid and counterproductive.
On the other hand I want Oracle to win and then hopefully Google will move away from Java. Then Oracle will effectively have killed Java on mobile and have only themselves to blame.
While that's a nice thought, I don't think that ruling in favor of Oracle will magically make Android poof into a new language/api/framework. It'd take lots of effort, and in the meantime fall way behind Apple. I'm not even sure the cost of trying to keep up with the iPhone would be justified in that case.
I'm interested by the statement that "the Copyright Act is meant to protect expression but not vocabulary". Could someone familiar with copyright law elaborate on this?
I'm interested in the general concept, but also curious how it applies to specific cases. For example, is the format of a media file just as copyrightable as the contents represented by it? Is this in line with the spirit of copyright?
The format of a media file is possibly patentable not copyrightable.
In terms of, say, music, vocabulary would be notes, scales, the sound of instruments, even to some extent, phrasing.
Film would be lighting effects, framing etc. etc.
Basically, vocabulary is the stuff that is meaningless by itself but represent critical parts to the whole of a creative work when arranged in a meaningful fashion.
So that is the crux of the question: is an API meaningful in it's own right or is it just a building block that holds little meaning by itself and exists only to be composed into meaningful works?
Specifically, my understanding is that Oracle is saying that the Structure, Sequence and Organization (SSO) of method names, parameters and return values is copyrightable.
So, if I implement that interface based on the documentation then I'm basing my code on Oracle's copyrighted API and I'm explicitly cloning Oracle's SSO. So I've committed copyright infringement?
> But that is precisely what copyrighting APIs will achieve, a monopoly on computer languages, because without the APIs, as one witness told the court in Oracle v. Google, Java is blind and deaf. It can't be used for much, if anything. Even "Hello World" requires APIs
That's just not true. You can create your own classes for IO, or anything else, implemented as native methods. The only problem you have is if you want to copy the whole structure, sequence, and organization of Sun's API that Sun designed. For instance if you want the use the C library functions to implement your new Java classes, that's fine since you aren't copying the SSO of them.
I think a lot of people have to jump to these 'sky is falling' 'it'll break the internet' arguments because they refuse to accept that Google is the bad apple here. Google copied Sun's work, didn't pay Sun for it, and at the same time destroyed Sun's future revenue from Java licenses (as everybody just used Android for free). This was probably a significant factor in the decision to sell Sun (the Schwartz mentioned for instance that some companies were not renewing their Java license).
But this is capitalism not morality, and when somebody else creates something you want you pay them for it. That's really the issue here, Google used Sun's work and didn't pay.
You can also come up with your own words to replace those of the English language, while continuing to use the same grammar, but that won't be English anymore, with the proof being that nobody will understand what you're saying.
This is exactly what a standard API provides for a language ... the standard vocabulary of that language, without which that language is no longer the same language. The distinction itself between the standard API and Java the language simply does not exist and never in Java's history was the API pushed out of context when Sun/Oracle referred to Java ... quite the contrary, to pass the TCK and be able to use the "Java" trademark, then you have to implement those APIs.
they refuse to accept that Google is the bad apple here
The lawsuit barely started and you've got to prove first that Google is the bad apple here. Quite the contrary, it doesn't look good for Oracle.
I do think that people side with Google on this one because otherwise it would open a huge can of worms, as other useful projects on which we rely on could cease to exist. This is not fanboyism, but rather self-preservation.
Google copied Sun's work, didn't pay Sun for it,
and at the same time destroyed Sun's future revenue
from Java licenses
This sentence made me laugh, because Sun destroyed its own future revenue by being incapable of releasing anything that comes close to Android. Sun destroyed its own future because of its own incompetence. As I view it, Google helped Sun because Android is keeping Java fresh and relevant.
But this is capitalism not morality
Well, actually, true capitalism excludes government-granted monopolies, because that goes against the concept of the free market. And copyright and patent protections are just that, government granted monopolies promoted by people and companies that rely on legislature to keep them relevant, instead of building and selling stuff to customers.
It's also funny that you bring the issue of "morality" into discussion, as arguments based on morality are often used to justify these government-granted monopolies, contrary to the law of the fittest that applies to the free market, which is immoral and unforgiving.
...and for once common sense seems to have been enacted. Props to Alsup and the EU court for this :-)
The spirit of Borland still lives:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Dev._Corp._v._Borland_Int....