Great news from the Supreme Court of the United States.
In a ruling on Monday, the Supreme Court found that Google could legally use elements of Oracle’s Java application programming interface (API) code when building Android.
“Google’s copying of the API to reimplement a user interface, taking only what was needed to allow users to put their accrued talents to work in a new and transformative program, constituted a fair use of that material,” the Supreme Court ruled in a 6-2 opinion, with one justice (Amy Coney Barrett) not taking part in the ruling. It overturned an earlier federal decision, which found that Google’s use of the API had constituted infringement.
Not only is Google’s specific use case declared fair use, but any and all similar cases are fair use as well, as a matter of law, the Supreme Court ruled.
We reach the conclusion that in this case, where Google reimplemented a user interface, taking only what was needed to allow users to put their accrued talents to work in a new and transformative program, Google’s copying of the Sun Java API was a fair use of that material as a matter of law.
Not only is this the only possible correct and proper ruling, it also means Oracle and Larry Ellison fall flat on their face which is always a joyous occasion as far as I’m concerned. And so ends the saga that, according to my pet conspiracy theory, was set up as one-two punch between Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison, who were incredibly close friends. Apple’s patent assault on Android vendors and Oracle’s attack on Google’s Android API usage happened at the same time, right after Jobs proclaimed he would go “thermonuclear war” on Android.
Now, you can argue that these two simultaneous assaults were entirely coincidental, and that these two close friends did not coordinate their attacks in any way. I, on the other hand, remain convinced this was a premeditated, coordinated assault on Android – entirely befitting the two, by all accounts, unpleasant people Jobs and Ellison are.
Thom Holwerda,
I think the majority of the industry would agree that only implementation and not APIs should be copyrightable. This isn’t technically what the supreme court has ruled though. They ruled only on google’s fair use right to override oracle’s API copyrights, not on the copyrightability of APIs themselves. It’s a big win for google, and helps to set some precedent, but fair rights are still going to be determined on a case by case basis. Because APIs are still considered copyrightable it is still possible to be found guilty of API copyright infringement over circumstantial technicalities and highly paid lawyers are proficient at coming up with technicalities.
For example, does a project like wine have a fair use right to use microsoft’s API copyrights? The supreme court ruling in favor of google doesn’t give us a clear answer because the circumstances are very different. So I am very glad this ruling happened to overturn the terrible decision in the federal circuit, but it would have been better to declare that APIs are public domain and free for everyone to create their own implementation. As it stands, developers can still face legal risks by reimplementing competing APIs.
Good remarks. It wasn’t an easy decision for the US courts to make, because what is an API is not legally defined. What if I put half my source code into something my competitor goes ahead and calls an API definition? What if putting half your source code into something resembling an API definition becomes common practice 20 years from now? So, the courts did what they could with existing copyright law, basically called all APIs to be copyrightable source-code but gave a fair-use right.
Anyway, we can’t change past decisions making API source-code copyrightable, so for now let’s celebrate the fact that the worst was averted.
kurkosdr,
Yeah, it doesn’t help that most what we know and experience in the industry every day goes right above judge’s heads. They’re in a position of authority, but by and large they lack the expertise to understand what’s going on. The Oracle-Google trial became interesting when it landed in the court of a programmer turned judge, who like most of us in the industry felt that granting exclusive rights to APIs would be bad. Of course his ruling was overturned.
It’s old news…but here’s a link:
https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/19/16503076/oracle-vs-google-judge-william-alsup-interview-waymo-uber
In the end, I’d rather judges be judges than technical. Most concepts that a judge might need to know can be given in testimony as long as judges are reasonably intelligent. I think you’re as likely to get a ‘bad’ ruling by a judge who doesn’t understand software than a programmer-turned-judge who has ideologies or tunnel vision.
Copyright, trademark, and fair use are interesting things that extend well beyond programming. It impacts areas like media and art. How is our creative work as programmers different from the creative work of say artists? I’ve built APIs and a good clean API is to an extent a work of art. I mean, as much a work of art as the concept of a superhero. What is fairuse? I don’t know. I can tell you for sure that I think I’d probably be sued if I released a superman movie without getting permission from whoever owns superman. How does that apply to release something about Java without getting Oracle’s permission or something about Windows without getting Microsoft’s permission.
I’m by no means taking a position on any of these. I actually have no idea. I’m just saying that I think it’s good to have judges are not so versed in software that they can take a holistic view of society and see legal patterns and don’t get software tunnel vision.
Yamin,
I can’t say that I agree. The federal ruling that overruled him came from pure ignorance and provided a strong legal basis for pseudo standard APIs to become legally enforceable monopolies. Without public APIs, we loose the benefit of competing implementations and interoperability. Making new implementations compatible with a competitor becomes illegal and whatever market leader controls the API gets the legal right to have the exclusive implementation. The general census in the industry is that this would be dangerous and wrong, so thankfully the supreme court stepped in this time…but they don’t do so consistently. I’m afraid if a large name like google hadn’t been on the lawsuit, the case would not be taken up by the supreme court at all. If you read the opinions of some of the justices, they’re still not that informed. This ignorance is a problem not just in courts, but also in congress where laws are enacted. Unfortunately it isn’t intelligence nor qualifications that drives laws so much as it is wealth and lobbyists, for better or worse.
You don’t have to tell me they’re different. Art is purely art, but code serves a mechanical purpose. There’s a huge difference between artistic expression and coding APIs. By and large programming is more about being practical and boiling problems down to simple obvious solutions. The best APIs are simple and obvious for programmers. Unless you are doing something to deliberately break expectations, like an obfuscated C contest, multitudes of programmers given the same technical goals are naturally going to experience overlap when producing interfaces we find to be most logical.
You might have to change the names, trademarks, and whatnot, but the concept of a superhero isn’t ordinarily copyrightable.
From the industry’s perspective, the oracle lawsuit was BS from the beginning since it defied decades of norms. Copying an implementation was always a no-no, but reimplimenting it in a compatible way was always allowed and that fundamentally requires the same API to be used, it’s not optional! If we ban API duplication, we’re effectively banning new compatible implementations from competitors. The computing world would be completely different today if 3rd party clones and offshoots had been deemed illegal.
It’s not just software that the courts are woefully ignorant of. It’s getting bad even for musicians where musical copyrights are being granted so loosely that even musical expression is becoming a legal quagmire.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ytoUuO-qvg
It’s no longer enough for a musician to compose their own music, the overaggressive copyright regime has turned music itself into a land grab where older litigious copyright holders get to claim the rights of works that they played virtually no part in creating. And note that here too it’s the same problem as it is for the software industry: the juries and judges deciding these cases have no professional experience whatsoever. They’re moving our legal system in a direction that rewards litigation and impedes and punishes new works by new creators.
As i see, next day Xiaomi or some other Chinese phone maker declares “Ambroid OS” with API “very similar to Android API” but it is not any kind of piracy but a way “to allow users to put their accrued talents to work in a new and transformative program”. Oracle vs Google precedent will cover this hypothetical Xiamomy not Alphabet.
I see what you mean. There could potentially be more competition… However…
Android is already open source and there are many forks, some incompatible, including one from Xiaomi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_custom_Android_distributions
And there are alternative implementations of Google Play APIs (GMS Core):
https://android.izzysoft.de/articles/named/android-without-google-5a
The competition is already there.
sukru,
I am struggling to parse what Qetzlcoatl said. But I nitpick android being opensource. AOSP is open source, but “Android” itself isn’t. Much of the android ecosystem resolves around proprietary google bits and dependencies that are licensed to manufacturers in a fairly restrictive manor.
I advocate for alternate google API implementations too, but I haven’t had much luck getting these to work with official android devices because one needs to defeat google’s signature checks that enforce google’s own proprietary implementation. Alternatives don’t even work on the official lineageos build
https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/index-how-to-get-signature-spoofing-support.3557047/
Obviously this is all relative, compared to apple, google is said to be the FOSS friendly choice. But I don’t want us to overlook real problems with android impeding competing FOSS implementations of google API services that we face in practice. This clearly gives google services competitive advantages even though it doesn’t necessarily merit them.
So Thom has a conspiracy theory that there was conspiracy between two companies had a vested interest in attacking Google, without any evidence. I have no deep love for Google, and genuine antipathy for Oracle, but I think you have more than that to accuse someone.
Thom doesn’t need to be held to a legal standard here. Larry Ellison was Steve Jobs’ _best man_, ffs. And Apple and Oracle launched their separate actions in very close proximity to each other. Sometimes that thing that walks/quacks/sh*ts like a duck actually is a goddamned duck.
I didn’t say he should be held to a legal standard, just a higher one than he is using. I felt that was obvious. My point is you don’t need a conspiracy for both companies to be acting in their own vested self interest to explain what happened. If that explains what happened and in the absence of anything more than “they were best friends” (or words to that effect), why go into slander territory?
To my knowlege there hasn’t been any credible rumors of a conspiracy, just guilt by association. They were like minded people (as friends often are), and both had a vested interest in going after Oracle, though for different reasons.
In the absence of even credible rumor, I can reduce conspiracy out of the equation and get the same result.
IMO Thom likes throwing bombs at companies he doesn’t like, and doesn’t let a lack of proof get in his way; while overlooking the same in products/companies he likes
Yeah, you don’t need more evidence than that. No legal standard. It smells. No one knows if its true and it doesn’t really matter. I guess from an anti trust that would look bad if Apple was doing it. No one is accusing Oracle of having a monopoly on anything.
So if your best friend does something bad, you were clearly involved? Don’t need more evidence than that…
Not if your best friend does something bad, but if you do as well, then, well…
It’s odd, having known criminals, hackers, and ceos, I have found them entirely capable of doing bad deeds independently. It’s almost as though like-minded people can run in the same circles…
Depends on the circumstance, like everything in life. If done privately, yes that would not require any more evidence to accuse me of anything on a non legal basis. If done publicly, it would potentially fall under defamation laws without more evidence as I’m not a public figure. If you’re talking about a legal conviction, then I would hope more evidence should be required and probably would because I’m not poor and I don’t have the wrong skin color in this country.
It should be noted, that all should have the same access to the same justice regardless of skin color, but I’m aware there are a lot of people in jail who’s only crime was having the wrong skin color and/or being poor. There should be a high bar for conviction,
There should be a high bar for accusation as well. And you now bring up a different standard than what you first said. People accuse, bully, etc on the internet with the flimsiest reasons. Maybe it is a good idea for all of us to do better and raise the bar, even if we aren’t talking legally
Also IMO you are engaging in a false equivalency between Jobs and Ellison. Apple engaged in patent fights, and while I don’t think most of those patents were valid, that is part of what patents are for (a system I want to reform). Oracle invented new arguments out of whole cloth and went on a scorched earth policy that would have been devastating
@jockm
Billionaires and Fortune 500 companies can take the heat. They don’t need you to protect them. The accusation here is not very scandalous and would not hurt the reputations of either individual or company.
I am not protecting billionaires, but I am not going to slander them because they are cheap targets. And you know I am not talking in legal terms because I have said so more than once. I am saying that if we allow shoddy thinking just because they are easy targets we invite shoddy thinking in everything. Because I have seen first hand how that guilt by association has hurt innocent people I have known and am aware of online. I invite you to look at the cases of contrapoints and lindsay ellis woes simply because of who they have casually associated with. We should all do better than this. If you can’t see it, I can’t change your mind
@jockm
I’m not sure how you can’t see the difference here. Its two companies that might have done something slightly shady and sadly probably not illegal. That kind of speculation isn’t that harmful to anyone, nor could it be. The case you’re referring to is so very different. Its so obviously different its not worth debating. But its clear that really affected you deeply and I hope nothing but peace, love and understanding for all involved. But its still okay to criticize and even speculate on the behavior of these tech bemouths.
The trouble is that Thom’s pathological hatred of Apple is so evident that I wouldn’t be surprised to find him come up with a theory that somebody at Apple caused World War II.
It may well be that Apple and Oracle had a coordinated effort to screw Google – and I’m certainly not a fan of Google, even less so of Oracle and definitely not a fan of the Fruit Company’s* efforts to cosy up to totalitarian governments – although the poster who commented on OSAlert’ article about it that a savvy company from any country would apply the laws of any country they did business in, to the extent they can’t legally get round them, rather than risk losing business was right on the money; but at this point I’d have to see some actual evidence, preferably from a third party, before I’d take Thom’s word for it on the subject.
*As an aside, there’s an American company genuinely called The Fruit Company that actually does sell fruit. I bet it rankles that that’s how Apple is often known.
You don’t need to actively conspire or have insider knowledge to collude. Sometimes the only real evidence without investigating deeper is circumstantial. Sometimes, like alleged “lone wolf” terrorist attacks, it may simply be taking advantage of a shared enemy in a general environment but it amounts to the same thing. The nods, the winks, the suggestions, the mood, the means. Plus the history of both. Google are no saints either but this doesn’t excuse sharp and shady practices by anyone else. Sometimes all you can do is “stop the attack” but it was an attack and it was an attack with consqeuences for the rest of us if it had succeeded. If this attack had succeeded there would have been a lot of collateral damage both within the US and internationally.
Another point to note is Oracle and Apple were so full of hate for their perceived common enemy they were prepared to trash an entire ecosystem just to win. This is no different from Koch Industries funding every anti-science extremist and wingnut to wreck the environment and rip society apart just so they can squeeze what remains out of the fossil fuel economy.
Posix ! If it was “””copyrighted””” would Linux have existed ? Heard that Minix existed mostly because Unix licensing scheme was obnoxious for scholars…
POSIX is the epitome of open source. It’s so open source, it’s a standard.
It was originally created to provide some level of compatibility between the multitudes of UNIX and UNIX-like systems that dominated the high-end computing sector in the late 70’s up to the mid/late 90’s. It’s sole goal was to allow code written on one system to be easily ported to another, preventing vendor lock-in.
If you want to see a world where POSIX was closed-source, look at the world of computing back in the late 70’s and early 80’s.
POSIX was a stepping stone to open source, nothing more. Its high price (at least in the 90s, it might be cheaper now), put it out of the reach of anyone but institutions. Plus it didn’t even exist in the 70s.
The Lions Book, now THAT was a big contribution to open source.
Good news.