[GTALUG] Google wins over Oracle in Java API copyright suit

[Evan Leibovitch]

The actual ruling document
<https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/18-956_d18f.pdf>  should be
quite readable by most participants here; I recommend a look. It actually
reads more like tech speak then legelase, and appears to do a thorough job
of laying the foundation for the decision. It indeed goes back to the
history and Sun's intentions before the Oracle purchase.

The really good news goes beyond the specifics of the case, as most Supreme
Court rulings do. It provides a conclusive ruling, unlikely to be
challenged again in our lifetimes, that APIs as a category of software
cannot be protected as intellectual property. While Google was acknowledged
to have copied Sun/Oracle's API code, such copying was confirmed to fall
under "fair use" exceptions to copyright infringement. Different variations
of fair use allow for legal (ie, "infringing" but exempt from action)
copying of works for the purpose of satire, education, home backups etc.

(This case, before the ruling, took up one of the weekly lecture sessions
of the Harvard CopyrightX course
<https://online-learning.harvard.edu/course/copyrightx> I am currently
taking. In a straw poll of the class a few weeks ago I was one of the few
who argued that and why Google should prevail. Much of the rest of the
class sided with Oracle. The next session will be fun.)

Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada
@evanleibovitch / @el56


On Tue, 6 Apr 2021 at 12:32, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk <talk at gtalug.org>
wrote:

> Oracle sued Google, claiming Android infringed Oracle's patents on Java.
> Somehow.  That failed.
>
> So they sued for copyright infringement based on the copying of the API
> declarations.
>
> The computer community had been very scared that APIs could be
> copyrighted, something nobody had expected.
>
> The US Supreme Court decided that this particular case came under "fair
> use". and was no infringement.  This was NOT a general decision about
> APIs.
>
> This is very good news of Free Software.  And consumers.
>
>
> https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20210405/09243546552/supreme-court-sides-with-google-decade-long-fight-over-api-copyright-googles-copying-java-api-is-fair-use.shtml
> ---
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