
If You Can Copyright an API, What Else Can You Copyright? - apievangelist
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/05/api-copyright/
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billybob
If I had to explain the issue at stake here, I'd do it this way.

Imagine you go into a fast-food restaurant. "I'd like a burger," you say to
the cashier. You get a burger. The next day, you go to a different restaurant.
"I'd like a taco," you say. They bring you a taco.

Just then, a lawyer bursts in. "I'm sorry, but my client, the burger
restaurant, has a copyright on that. No other restaurant is allowed to accept
orders in the form of 'I'd like a(n) X'".

Would that be crazy?

APIs are the computer equivalent. If you go to a blog and request a page like
'someblog.com/posts', then you go to a movie theater's site and request a page
like 'moviesite.com/movies', you wouldn't think of those two actions as having
anything in common. Sure, both sites use a url like '/items' to serve up that
kind of item. Why wouldn't they?

But if the courts rule that APIs can be copyrighted, the movie site might
either have to license the right to have URLs like '/movies', or do something
else.

What else? Whatever they can think of - and think of it first. Because the
race will be on to copyright every imaginable scheme. '/show/me/movies' and
'/movies=all' and '/3932939' will soon be taken. Even if they can come up with
a new convention, they'll likely be in court for the right to use it.

Does that sound good for consumers - ostensibly the ones whom intellectual
property laws should benefit? Does it sound good for new businesses who don't
have legal departments?

Or would it be crazy?

~~~
sunir
Except that isn't a good analogy. It's much more like copyrighting the Burger
King menu, which is the interface to ordering services from Burger King.

By the way, you can copyright restaurant menus.

~~~
adnam
Entirely wrong analogy. The order counter is the interface, and the menu is
the documentation.

~~~
sunir
Sure.

Is the source code the software or the compiled binary? What is copyrightable?
One or both?

Is an API the source code, the compiled binary, or the running process of the
software? What is copyrightable?

Computer software is considered copyrightable. Source code and binaries are
both copyrightable.

Even if you didn't copy the source code, if your software is "substantially
similar" to another copyrighted software, you could violate their copyrights.
The argument is whether or not an API is a substantial part of some computer
software.

In this case, it's the Java libraries. Since the Java libraries only value is
the Java APIs, I believe it would be hard to argue that copying the Java APIs
did not violate Sun's (and now Oracle's) copyright.

That's why I think that it's very frightening that Google has to rely on this
argument to defend itself rather than, say, the statue of limitations on
copyright or, better, an explicit license grant from Sun.

~~~
chc
> _Is the source code the software or the compiled binary? What is
> copyrightable? One or both?_

The source code is the creative work, and the compiled binary is a mechanical
transformation of the work, and thus both are covered by the same copyright. I
don't see how this is mysterious.

> _Is an API the source code, the compiled binary, or the running process of
> the software?_

It is none of those. The I in API stands for _interface_ — that is, it's an
abstract description of the things a library provides and how you interact
with them. The source code, the compiled binary and the running process are
concrete implementations, not abstract interfaces.

> _Since the Java libraries only value is the Java APIs_

What on earth? Are you really saying the only value of the Java standard
library is the names and type signatures of the packages and methods, and not
the actual functionality they provide? The library could actually not
implement any of the methods and it would be just as valuable?

I have to assume you are just very confused about what the word "API" means.

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pmjordan
What about hardware registers such as the layout for memory-mapped I/O? You
know, "write value X to byte offset Y to switch the device into state Z."

If that's copyrightable, the Linux kernel is basically one big copyright
violation, because I'm sure a lot of the device driver writers weren't given a
license...

~~~
sunir
No, because that is an idea and not a specific, fundamental expression of an
idea. Only a specific software is copyrightable.

Is the portion of software that "write[s] value X to byte offset Y to switch
the device into state Z," copyrightable?

Well, it would depend on how unique the source code was, such as pushing a VGA
card into Mode-X or making an Arduino do something spectacular. But only that
specific source code would be copyrightable.

Given the fundamental nature of the idea, the copyright likely won't stop you
from writing another piece of software along similar lines, though someone may
patent the idea of controlling an Arduino to steer a hovercraft and prevent
you from going to market.

[edit: spelling of Mode-X]

~~~
ajross
A register interface (the VGA registers, let's say) is not a "specific,
fundamental expression on an idea"? Say what? The register interface is (quite
literally!) a physical machine that implements the idea. It's much more
concrete than any piece of software ever could be.

I re-read that post several times to be sure. I honestly think you're managed
to get your head into a space where you're confusing up with down. This is
just plain wrong, and shockingly so.

~~~
sunir
The register interface of a VGA card was copyright IBM 1989, but that wasn't
the question.

The question was whether the fundamental operation of a von Neumann machine
was copyrightable. No, it isn't. That's just an idea, not a specific
expression.

An example I grew up with was convincing a VGA adapter to go into 320x240
mode. That was a rather clever hack. The original source code to do it was
copyrightable. He published it in Dr. Dobb's journal in 1991 and then later in
his own book.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode_X>

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roguecoder
1\. Phone numbers that spell words

2\. Order Forms

3\. Login Screens

4\. Diner order slang

5\. Hand signals used on the stock exchange floor

~~~
sunir
To assuage your fears or maybe exacerbate them:

2, 3 are already copyrightable. (Rightly so.)

4, 5 are not copyrightable because they aren't fixed expressions in a tangible
medium. 1 isn't copyrightable because a phone number is a fact.

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jjacobson
I assumed we were talking about Java library APIs (like Hash, List, etc). Is
this over REST style HTTP calls instead?

~~~
freehunter
The legal debate is over Java APIs. The broader debate is over all APIs, since
the ruling would be very unlikely to specify one single language. If Java APIs
are copyrightable, all APIs are copyrightable.

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FrancescoRizzi
My vote goes to browser vendor prefixes (eg: -webkit-make-awesome-coffee)

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nerdfiles
1\. Music, etc (anything that can be formally described by a markup language)

2\. DNA sequences

3\. Anything subject to algebraic expression

4\. Proofs and Arguments (_Paley's_ Divinewatcher, _Descarte's_ Mind-Body
Problem, _Nozick's_ Experience Machine, _Gödel's_ Incompleteness Proof)

5\. Programmatic Techniques for manipulating one's own brain

6\. Expression of physical laws

7\. E=MC^2, Gravity, etc. (assuming God is a "Programmer of Nature")

8\. Personality types (fitting analytic descriptions; Analytic/Description
Psychology, Jungian psychology, "narrative psychology"), because eventually:

9\. Neural Networks, and the like

10\. The Universe itself

(11. Historically rooted chess strategies (the notation as a historical marker
of creativity in time))

(12. Just about anything that might exist within the domain of W3C Provenance)

((13. Anything conceptually dependent on _techne_))

~~~
nerdfiles
It's not clear to me why you're downvoting, each of these components bypasses
the "do not contain innovative technology that should be protected from
competitors" feature.

You're being unfair with these downvotes, and perhaps a bit uncouth since no
general idea, or specific idea, as to why it's being downvoted is presented.
Each of these is innovative in some way, and we can see a predictable trend
where we will first assume that the problem is unique (whatever the API, etc
tries to solve) and then "give due diligence" to creativity/labor where
necessary.

If you're taking this post as a "troll" attempt or a "joke," the joke's on
you. This is what I truly believe, and I'm fairly, genuinely answering the
question.

You're downvoting because of the content of my thought.

Cheers.

~~~
sunir
Look up U.S. Copyright law and the case history on each of the suggestions you
made. It looks like you may be surprised.

I am tempted to go through them all myself, but it is less fun and may make
you feel better about the state of copyright if you do the research yourself.

Two for free: music is already copyrightable; DNA is not copyrightable.

~~~
nerdfiles
DNA is still an open debate. Are you telling me a fact of law? Are we
interpreting this question in the same way?

I'm talking about music as a expressed through a markup language. So I'm
thinking the "concept" of a concept album can be copyrighted IF APIs are
copyrightable. What kind of metadata would it possess? Does the author of the
music have the ability to extend that metadata?

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excuse-me
IIRC The last version of Sun's 'ls' command used every upper and lower case
character as an option flag.

Oracle now owns Sun and so has copyright on every upper and lower case letter
( at least when used as an option flag)

~~~
sunir
That's not correct. Consider this comparable example following your logic:

The Oxford English Dictionary has a copyright on the dictionary of every
English word, and therefore Oxford Press has a copyright on every English
expression.

~~~
excuse-me
Wait till they get a US lawyer !

