Oracle vs Google: No, the Supreme Court did not say APIs aren't copyright – and that's a good thing
- Reference: 1618223485
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/04/12/oracle_google_case_opinion/
- Source link:
The case was in many ways a classic troll. Way back when, Google thought Java SE would be a good platform to build its new Android phone around. That didn't work out, thank your favourite deity, so Google wrote its own platform with just enough Java structure to bring caffeinated programmers – of whom there were millions – along for the ride.
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Everyone was happy until Oracle turned up. It fancied a new revenue line for the profit centre it called its legal department. Looking around, Oracle discovered and hauled away the dying Sun with – aha – intellectual property that could be weaponised. Most notably, Google's little shards of Java API. There were other things too, like patents, but they soon fell by the wayside. As the court case crept up the American legal system, it became widely understood to be about whether you can copyright APIs. Oracle said yes, and Google had infringed that copyright. Google said no, and anyway even if it had, the "fair use" aspect of copyright applied.
Over a decade on, and millions in legal fees, Supreme Court rules for Google over Oracle in Java API legal war [3]READ MORE
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For a reasonably obscure intersection of law and coding, this case assumed enormous importance. Rightly so. If APIs were copyrightable, IBM could have closed down the PC clone industry at birth. It and Microsoft in turn would be open to a case from earlier microcomputer makers and Digital Research, both of whom could point to amazing similarities between their APIs and those in the IBM BIOS and Microsoft's MS-DOS.
In fact, most of what we now think of as open, competitive computing could not have evolved. You wouldn't have been able to build an alternative component, hardware or software, that used the API of the thing it replaced – not without permission. Even using an API in an application might be problematic.
The entire industry has operated on the assumption that APIs aren't copyright. Does this mean that APIs can't be copyrighted? No. It means that no court has decided whether they can or cannot. And although Google asked the Supreme Court to finally declare for freedom, the court refused – saying instead that even if "for the sake of argument" APIs could be copyright, Google's defence of "fair use" was upheld. (You can and should read the [5]court's decision [PDF], which explains all of this in admirably clear language.)
Why no decision on APIs?
You may think this a missed opportunity to defuse a nuclear warhead at the heart of modern computing, and you'd be right. The court could easily have said that APIs did not qualify for copyright protection, and that would have been that. If Google had asked for relief on those grounds alone, perhaps it might even have happened. But Google did a belt-and-braces defence, and the Supremes thought the belt good enough.
The decision did make two points about the API copyright issue. It listed all the reasons under US copyright law why APIs might not qualify – you can't copyright process, or mechanism, or function, and these are all things APIs are. The court also said that as the world of technology was changing very quickly, it wasn't a good idea to make rules before they're really needed. This decision didn't need to be made for this case so it wasn't.
The results are also twofold. The industry has operated on the assumption that APIs can't be copyrighted and by now there are many decades of examples where free access to APIs have advanced technology, activated markets, and encouraged tons of innovation: things that copyright law is designed to encourage, as the court decision noted more than once.
The other implication of leaving the nuclear weapon untouched is that it may not be just the bad guys who get to use it. If APIs had been copyright from the dawn of CPU time, free and open source as we know it would have been closed down. But now FOSS has uncharted oceans of APIs of its own that, if copyright is deemed applicable in the future, can be brought into the permissive licensing regime and protected alongside everything else. It would still be a very bad idea, but there is now a balance of power.
The Supreme Court has done a very fine job of understanding APIs and reached a wise decision about Google, but it knows enough not to claim it can see into the future.
In any case, the signals are clear enough. The unprotected API is a key part of the innovation that keeps technology advancing.
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Oracle has lost its expensive, politically damaging, and thoroughly reprehensible gamble, further tarnishing its image as an unsavoury guest at the feast. And anyone in the future who wants to use API copyright to pull cash out of inventions it did not create and has no interest in furthering will have to be very, very bold and very, very rich to ignore the warnings that Oracle vs Google has left in the landscape. We're safe for a few years yet. ®
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[1] https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/05/google_prevails_over_oracle_in/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/applications&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YHRunbF3x3EwopidZyG8zwAAAFY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/05/google_prevails_over_oracle_in/
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/applications&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YHRunbF3x3EwopidZyG8zwAAAFY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/18-956_d18f.pdf
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/applications&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YHRunbF3x3EwopidZyG8zwAAAFY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: APIs might be subject to copyright
This is what 'the new SCO' is relying upon AFAIK.
They will want billions from everyone who uses Linux.
The court also said that as the world of technology was changing very quickly, it wasn't a good idea to make rules before they're really needed.
Someone might want to mention that to the US Patent Office.
USPTO is so dysfunctional precisely because it doesn't have any rules, it accepts applications in spite of prior art and then let the courts fight it out. It might as well not exist.
Patent fees
The USPTO wants lots of applications and for them to continue as long as possible as this is what earns them [1]a lot of fees . It does not cost them if the rest of us have huge legal fees because they did not do their job properly.
Not quite as bad as these Guardians ad litems [2]supposedly acting in kids' best interests but in reality feathering their own nests .
Both cases of power without proper accountability.
[1] https://www.uspto.gov/learning-and-resources/fees-and-payment/uspto-fee-schedule
[2] https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/megan-fox/2021/03/02/caught-colluding-leaked-video-reveals-family-court-guardians-conspiring-to-dox-journalist-for-exposing-them-n1429556
The future is FOSS
End of argument.
Re: The future is FOSS
.... and how tightly is Android coupled to the (proprietary) Google Play services again?
Re: The future is FOSS
Not as tight as Google would like. Can I point you to AOSP? Or even closer to home: https://www.theregister.com/2020/11/12/android_without_google_e_smartphone/
Re: The future is FOSS
FOSS is funded almost exclusively by companies that make commercial software. It's coupled to the commercial software industry so it can't replace it.
Re: The future is FOSS
Some FOSS is funded or strongly supported by software companies. Some by other entities (big users, not software companies - including governments and universities). Some by virtually no one: every few months there is a report of a critical piece of FOSS that everyone is dependent on but has one unpaid lone developer supporting it as a hobby.
In any case, there are many, many examples of FOSS replacing commercial software. For example, when I started developing embedded systems there were many proprietary embedded kernels (often developed by the device maker themselves): now there are a tiny number of alternatives to Linux which has taken over almost all the embedded systems business.
The real outcome here is that some lawyers were kept occupied and were even paid for that,
I think MS Clippy outlines what the harm might have been,
or perhaps the Michigan law that defines fornication (sex outside of a legally sanctioned marriage) as a felony
Good article
Good summary and useful points.
And nice to see the IP-super-maximalist views from the past have given way to more nuanced thinking here at El Reg.
Although it is really hard to celebrate any win for either Google or Oracle! Shame really that the Supremes couldn't say both lost and make them both pay fines to some genuinely free and open source software projects. How about Replicant and MariaDB?
Re: Good article
Are you suggesting that The Supremes should have left them with nothing but a band of gold?
Re: Good article
" Are you suggesting that The Supremes should have left them with nothing but a band of gold? "
Maybe an album or two as well if they were feeling generous.
That's a pity
I was hoping that Oracle would win and then IBM come round and ask about all these copyright Sql statements Oracle might be using
Oracle needs to be slapped.
Google got explicit permission & kudos from Sun to do exactly what Google was doing with Java, so anything after that point is utterly moot. For Oracle to come in, buy Sun, & then try to sue for what was permissable at the time is Absolutely Not Allowed under American law, so why were they allowed to continue this case in the first place?
Even if you ignore that Oracle is guilty of the very thing they screamed that Google was doing, and that's a mountain to ignore sitting in your living room currently squishing the cat, one can't help but wonder why the first set of lawyers & judge didn't point out those facts before dismissing the case with prejudice.
Oracle needs to be slapped hard enough to make their bottom line bleed like a badly butchered pig, that way they (and anyone else stupid enough to try similar fuckwittery) will stop & *think* before doing it.
Re: Oracle needs to be slapped.
> Oracle needs to be slapped hard enough to make their bottom line bleed like a badly butchered pig [ ... ]
Yes, but unfortunately that's unlikely to happen.Google might try to recover their attorney's fees, which at this point probably count in the tens of millions. But that's pocket change to Oracle.
And Oracle being Oracle, I wouldn't be surprised if they tried suing again for the same copyright claim, only with a slightly different approach.
Oracle has the most innovative legal department in all of Silicon Valley.
Re: Oracle has the most innovative legal department
Apple and IBM aren't slouches.
Most of their patent and registered designs are really invalid.
Book Titles
Book Titles are not copyrightable. Not to be confused with Registered Trademarks, not all of which can be protected.
It depends exactly what you mean by an API, if it should be copyrightable.
Really the implementation is the definitely automatically copyright part. But increase of Copyright to Life + 75 is a landgrab by corporations and of no benefit to creators. Corporate Copyright shouldn't be renewable and should be 20 to 25 years.
Re: Book Titles
" Book Titles are not copyrightable. "
Nor are their story lines (at least not in Europe/UK). Only the presentation is copyrightable. So I'd be in breach of copyright if I wrote a Sherlock Holmes story without getting permission from the copyright holder, but I could legitimately write a detective story about a smart misogynist investigator with a medic as a sidekick, provided I called them Smith and Robbins, quite probably even if they lived in Baker Street (but not at 221b).
Re: Book Titles
That one, I understand, is down to the miraculous money-making properties of a mouse who once captained a steamboat. His parent insists on protecting the poor wee fella for as long as they possibly can - first they started with 25 years, then they pushed it to 50 years and now they still want to change his nappies (diapers) at 75 years old. I understand they intend to do this for a few years yet.
Lucky mouse.
Re: Book Titles
I agree with the Disney copyright extension, but only if it is symmetric.
Every extra year they get also applies to the the years before the mouse.
So once all those princess, dwarfs and wooden boys hit the Grim, Anderson etal they lose everything
Happy they killed the GPL - when it comes to dynamic linking.
If you can copy APIs freely, basically if I write an import module (header file, etc.) for a GPL library, and don't deploy it but let the customer download it, the GPL - which works only because of copyright - is no longer applicable.
Good.
@LDS - Re: Happy they killed the GPL - when it comes to dynamic linking.
I'm happy to see you're happy but nothing has been killed here. As long as you don't modify that library and especially because you're not distributing a modified version imposing additional restrictions on it, no harm's been done.
It's OK, you may read again the T&C of the GPL license. And some additional reading on how API work would do you great good too.
And for my own curiosity, if you don't agree with a license why would you even consider using code under that license ? I mean, don't like it then don't eat it.
APIs might be subject to copyright
Really, it's hard to discount the possibility that copyright applies to APIs. The bigger question is, assuming they are subject to copyrights, what are those rights worth?
Ultimately, Oracle fought a case to the Supreme Court over rights that can't be worth more than a few tens of thousands of dollars at most. Google offered to pay a reasonable sum, they rejected it and insisted on 'one hundred beeellion dollars'. The judges ruled, quite rightly, that enabling monopolistic market abuse isn't the point of copyrights.