
Jury in Oracle v. Google finds in Google's favour - LukeB_UK
https://twitter.com/sarahjeong/status/735924335412543488
======
grellas
Law evolves and the law of copyright in particular is ripe for "disruption" \-
and I say this not as one who opposes the idea of copyright but, on the
contrary, as one who strongly supports it.

It is right that the author of a creative work get protection for having
conceived that work and reduced it to tangible form. Developers do this all
the time with their code. So too do many, many others. Many today disagree
with this because they grew up in a digital age where copyright was seen as
simply an unnecessary impediment to the otherwise limitless and basically
cost-free capacity we all have to reproduce digital products in our modern
world and hence an impediment to the social good that would come from
widespread sharing of such products for free. Yet, as much as people believe
that information ought to be free, it is a fact that simply letting any casual
passer-by copy and distribute any creative work with impunity would certainly
work to rob those who may have spent countless hours developing such works of
the commercial value of their efforts. I will grant that this is a social
policy judgment on which the law could come down on either side. I stand with
the idea of copyright protection.

Even granting the correctness of copyright as a body of law that protects
certain property interests, there are still many abuses in the way it is
implemented and enforced. Copyright terms have been extended to the point of
absurdity, and certainly well beyond what is needed to give the original
author an opportunity to gain the fruits of his or her labor. Enforcement
statutes are heavy-handed and potentially abusive, especially as they apply to
relatively minor acts of infringement by end-users. And the list goes on.

The point is that many people are fed up with copyright law as currently
implemented and, when there is widespread discontent in society over the
effects of a law, the time is ripe for a change.

I believe this is where copyright law is today.

The Bono law may have slipped through Congress with nary a dissent in its day
but this will not happen again, whatever the lobbying power of Disney and
others. And the same is true for the scope of copyright law as it applies to
APIs.

Ours is a world of digital interoperability. People see and like its benefits.
Society benefits hugely from it. Those who are creatively working to change
the world - developers - loath having artificial barriers that block those
benefits and that may subject them to potential legal liabilities to boot.
Therefore, the idea that an API is copyrightable is loathsome to them. And it
is becoming increasingly so to the society as a whole.

The copyright law around APIs had developed in fits and starts throughout the
1980s and 1990s, primarily in the Ninth Circuit where Silicon Valley is
located. When Oracle sued Google in this case, that law was basically a mess.
Yet Judge Alsup, the judge assigned to this case, did a brilliant synthesis in
coming up with a coherent and logically defensible legal justification for why
APIs in the abstract should not be protected by copyright. He did this by
going back to the purpose of copyright, by examining in detail what it is that
APIs do, and by applying the law in light of its original purpose. The result
was simple and compelling (though the judicial skill it took to get there was
pretty amazing).

Legal decisions are binding or not depending on the authority of the court
making them and on whether a particular dispute in under the authority of one
court or another when it is heard.

The decision by Judge Alsup is that of a trial judge and hence not legally
binding as precedent on any other judge. It could be hugely persuasive or
influential but no court is bound to follow it in a subsequent case.

The Federal Circuit decision that reversed Judge Alsup and held APIs to be
copyrightable is not that of a trial judge and has much more precedential
effect. Yet it too has limited authority. The Federal Circuit Court does not
even have copyright as its area of jurisdiction. It is a specialty court set
up to hear patent appeals. The only reason it heard this case was because the
original set of claims brought by Oracle included patent claims and this
became a technical ground by which the Federal Circuit Court gained
jurisdiction to hear the appeal. But there are many other Federal Circuit
courts in the U.S. and the effect of the Federal Circuit Court decision
concerning copyrights is not binding on them. There is also the U.S. Supreme
Court. It has the final authority and its decisions are binding on all lower
federal courts as concerns copyright law.

The point is that the battle over this issue is not over. It is true that the
Federal Circuit decision was a large setback for those who believe APIs should
not be subject to copyright. Yet there remains that whole issue of social
resistance and that is huge. It will undoubtedly take some time but the law
can and does change in ways that tend to reflect what people actually think
and want, at least in important areas. No one has a stake in seeing that
Oracle be awarded $9 billion in damages just because it bought Sun
Microsystems and found an opportunity through its lawyers to make a big money
grab against Google. But a lot of people have a stake in keeping software
interoperability open and free and many, many people in society benefit from
this. Nor is this simply an issue of unsophisticated people fighting the shark
lawyers and the big corporations. Many prominent organizations such as EFF are
in the mix and are strongly advocating for the needed changes. Thus, this
fight over APIs will continue and I believe the law will eventually change for
the better.

In this immediate case, I believe the jury likely applied common sense in
concluding unanimously that, notwithstanding Oracle's technical arguments, the
use here was in fact benign given the ultimate purposes of copyright law. I
leave the technical analysis to others but, to me, this seems to be a
microcosm of the pattern I describe above: when something repels, and you have
a legitimate chance to reject it, you do. Here, the idea of fair use gave the
jury a big, fat opening and the jury took it.

~~~
appleflaxen
People complain about the special interests, but some fail to realize that the
major backers of Extreme Copyright (TM) are a special interest that we
created.

We, the US public, out of the goodness of our hearts and wanting to foster
art, gave up our right to "repeat what we heard" (copying, when what you hear
is digital) in return for incentives to create art.

And then _bam_ ; decades later the incentives are the de facto baseline, and
have been extended with almost no public awareness (let alone debate) using
the special interest money that our goodwill created for them.

It is the ultimate checkmate of democracy, and if it weren't so unjust, you
would have to hand it to the media industries for playing so masterfully.

Well, good job. You got us. You took the rules we made, and took the public
(US, but even more abroad, by exporting your draconian laws via more special
interest money) and absolutely destroyed us. You won. Game over.

But wait... not quite. The game is politics. And if you had been content to
simply swim in your unimaginable Scrooge McDuck pool of gold dubloons, you
would swim until the end of time. But the public is finally starting to
notice, and the technorati whose careers and employers (like Google) depend on
having a level playing field (even though they try to tilt it in their favor
when they can) are starting to notice. I'm not so optimistic that change will
come, but if it does, my vote will be for whatever is closest to "burn the
fucker to the ground". And some other people feel the same way.

What's the possible consequence of such an extreme change? I guess the risk of
fewer Taylor Swifts. Fewer Kany Wests. Fewer Oracles. Fewer Microsofts. Fewer
Steve Jobs. Those are such small consequences that, to be honest, they might
be additional benefits.

It would be best if the copyright system were reduced to a smouldering ruin,
so that the public could better understand exactly what we gave up when the
copyright regime was created, and make a more informed decision about which
incentives really are needed to make innovation happen. Until we do, the
special interests created by those very laws will continue to make us pay for
the favor we gave them.

~~~
rayiner
> Fewer Oracles. Fewer Microsofts. Fewer Steve Jobs.

Was it so bad back when you could just buy software for money? Before business
models built on eyeballs and data mining instead of copyright?

~~~
brianwawok
Like when windows extended Java then started adding incompatibile methods to
the windows Java extension that would be on all windows computers? Or maybe
when office used a hidden format to store files so no one could share files
without buying a license? They were not great times at all...

~~~
Zigurd
> _Like when windows extended Java then started adding incompatibile methods_

Visual J++ was a very usable Java. Had Sun failed to sue it out of existence,
the world would have had a Java with a good UI stack developers actually used,
an IDE that was not unusably slow and buggy, AND almost all packages built for
Sun's Java would drop right in without problems. Visual J++ would have created
the same effect on the use of Java that Android did, but it would have
happened approximately 10 years earlier.

Sun's suit was tremendously destructive of a very useful product that would
have helped the cause of Java's wide use. Unnecessary, spiteful, and an own-
goal.

EDIT: And less VB, and more Windows applications software running in a managed
language runtime, years earlier.

~~~
jen20
> an IDE that was not unusably slow and buggy

Can't argue about the UI stack in general, but IntelliJ is a dream compared to
anything Microsoft have ever produced.

~~~
Zigurd
I'm talking about Forte, circa 2000. That's when Sun sued Microsoft over
Visual J++.

Forte later became NetBeans and today it is fine but it was rubbish back then
especially compared to Microsoft's tool chain.

------
rayiner
These are the statutory fair use factors the jury was required to consider (17
U.S.C. 107):

(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a
commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;

(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the
copyrighted work as a whole; and

(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the
copyrighted work.

It's a somewhat surprising result, because two of the factors weigh heavily
against Google (it's a commercial work, and was important to Android gaining
developer market-share). Oracle's strategy going forward, both in post-trial
motions and in any subsequent appeal, will be based on arguing that no
rational jury could have applied these factors to the undisputed facts of the
case and concluded that the fair use test was met.

It's also not a particularly satisfying result for anybody. If API's are
copyrightable, then I can't think of a better case for protecting them than in
this one, where Google created a commercial product for profit and there was
no research or scientific motivation. It wasn't even really a case (like say,
Samba) where copying was necessary to interoperate with a closed, proprietary
system. Davlik isn't drop-in compatible with the JVM anyway.

That makes Oracle's win on the subject matter issue basically a pyrrhic
victory for anyone looking to protect their APIs. They're protectable, but
can't be protected in any realistic scenario.

And if you're in the camp that believes APIs should not be protected, this
precedent--if it stands--means that you'll have to shoulder the expense of
going to trial on the fair use issue before winning on the merits.

~~~
theptip
Agreed, it sounds like by the letter of the law Google's use was not "fair
use", if you grant the assumption that APIs are copyrightable in the first
place.

What recourse does Oracle have now? Didn't the Supreme Court decline to take
this issue up last time round? Does that mean this case is closed?

~~~
bradleyjg
As Rayiner mentions, first they'll be a post-trial motion to vacate or
overrule the jury verdict. Regardless of how those motions are decided the
losing side will appeal to the Ninth Circuit. Only after a Ninth Circuit panel
and perhaps en banc panel rules will one side or the other try for a cert
petition to the Supreme Court.

~~~
curt15
Since Oracle hasn't dropped its patent claims from the complaint (despite the
fact that they've already been defeated), doesn't Oracle get to bypass the 9th
circuit and vault the case back to the CAFC?

~~~
bradleyjg
Good point. That's a corner of the federal rules I'm not nearly familiar
enough with to give you a confident answer.

~~~
DannyBee
It will return to the federal circuit. The patent issues _were not even
appealed_ to the federal circuit the first time.

"Because this action included patent claims, we have jurisdiction pursuant to
28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(1)"

...

"The jury found no patent infringement, and the patent claims are not at issue
in this appeal. "

See Oracle America v. Google, Inc.
([http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/content/oracle-america-inc-v-
go...](http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/content/oracle-america-inc-v-google-inc-
opinion))

The federal circuit will, in turn, pretend to apply ninth circuit law.

------
nabaraz
My favourite part of the trial was when the judge told Oracle that a high
schooler could write rangeCheck[1].

[1]
[https://developers.slashdot.org/story/12/05/16/1612228/judge...](https://developers.slashdot.org/story/12/05/16/1612228/judge-
to-oracle-a-high-schooler-could-write-rangecheck)

~~~
untog
My favourite part:

Movement to a few minutes of terse explanations, including what the acronym
GNU stands for: GNU is Not Unix.

“The G part stands for GNU?” Alsup asked in disbelief.

“Yes,” said Schwartz on the stand.

“That doesn’t make any sense,”

[http://motherboard.vice.com/read/in-google-v-oracle-the-
nerd...](http://motherboard.vice.com/read/in-google-v-oracle-the-nerds-are-
getting-owned)

~~~
slavik81
I never realized how entertaining this trial was.

Schwartz: "Back in 2009, Android WAS lame."

Google atty: "Move to strike, your honor!"

[https://twitter.com/xor/status/730456825649188865](https://twitter.com/xor/status/730456825649188865)

~~~
farcical_tinpot
Yer, it was absolutely hilarious.

They had to get a tech guy in to open Java files on a computer. They didn't
have an IDE installed on there and there were complaints that there were too
many folders!

------
phasmantistes
I'd also just like to give huge props to Sarah Jeong for keeping up such a
high-quality live stream of tweets over the course of the entire trial. That's
reporting done right.

~~~
rplnt
> tweets

> reporting done right

I'm not sure. Surely it would only benefit her if she weren't limited by 140
characters, right?

~~~
c_c_c
No. You're allowed more than 140 characters because you can tweet more than
once. The real time updates were invaluable.

~~~
toyg
How so? This isn't something where you'll have to decide in a split-second
wether to take to the streets in response to this or that development. You
could argue that there is some value for stock traders (and tbh, given the
result, even for them it's basically the same as it was before), but that's
about it.

It's just the "breaking news" frenzy applied to social media. Nothing to
celebrate, imho.

~~~
c_c_c
Sorry but this was an example of how a real time feed on twitter can be
informative in a way that a long form piece could not. A summary of the trial
would not be the same as the minutiae that she was able to convey. It was done
really well. If all you get is long form from New Yorker or Le Monde, you're
missing out.

------
mythz
Whew, Oracle's lawyers and blind greed doesn't get to destroy interoperability
for the entire Tech Industry.

But the fact that Oracle could get this close and spin deceit to a non-
technical Jury to decide whether using API declarations from an OSS code-base
would in some universe entitle them to a $9B payday, is frightening.

~~~
epalmer
> But the fact that Oracle could get this close and spin deceit to a non-
> technical Jury to decide whether using API declarations from an OSS code-
> base would in some universe entitle them to a $9B payday, is frightening.

Yes this was really a close one. I am breathing a sigh of relief now.

------
wbillingsley
Is it just me, or is this result the worst of both worlds (for the you-and-
me's of the world, rather than billion dollar corporates)?

Had APIs been found not to be copyrightable, that would have been great and
opened up the development ecosystem for us to use and adapt each other's APIs.

Had it been clear that no this sort of thing wasn't allowed then small
developers would have had protection that they could publish their APIs
without fear of a deep-pocketed competitor saying "thanks, we're going to
muscle you out of the market, using your own design to do it, and ignoring any
of that GPL nonsense you've licensed it licensed under, we're just having your
API as our own thanks". Not an open world, but at least everyone would be on a
level field.

But a "fair use" finding of fact sets no precedent for anything else, gives no
protection for the ordinary developer, and essentially means "it turns out you
can do this if you're big enough to afford to pay high-tier lawyers for six
years". (ie, BigCorp can copy APIs with impunity, but you can't)

------
davis
If you found Sarah's coverage of the trial useful, she is accepting payments
on PayPal since she was doing it with her own money:
[https://twitter.com/sarahjeong/status/731687243916529665](https://twitter.com/sarahjeong/status/731687243916529665)

~~~
xyzzy4
It costs her money to post on Twitter?

~~~
cheald
It costs her time, at a minimum, which comes at the opportunity cost of other
money-making ventures.

~~~
xenihn
She's strengthening her personal brand and potentially gaining access to new
clients for future work. I have absolutely no problem with her asking for
donations, but let's not be disingenuous :)

~~~
Throwaway23412
This is the first time I've seen "do it for the exposure" in the wild
([http://theoatmeal.com/comics/exposure](http://theoatmeal.com/comics/exposure)).
And you even called the other person disingenuous (albeit in jest). I'm
impressed.

~~~
xenihn
Looks like I missed the part where someone else was making money off her
reporting and refusing to pay her, do you happen to have a link?

------
koolba
Wow. I suddenly have a lot more faith in the courts and juries to land sane
verdicts in technology trials. Still sad that it takes a billion dollar
company to be able to stand up to this (as anybody smaller would be crushed by
the trial expense) but let's celebrate it none the less.

Any lawyers around? I wonder if Google can claim legal expenses back from
Oracle.

~~~
dctoedt
Under the Copyright Act, the judge has discretion to award attorney fees to
the prevailing party. [0]

[0]
[https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/505](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/505)

~~~
koolba
> Under the Copyright Act, the judge has discretion to award attorney fees to
> the prevailing party. [0]

I think that'd be good for the ecosystem as it'd send a message that there
will be consequence for pursuing frivolous lawsuits.

~~~
throwawaykeno
I don't think it's fair to call this law suit frivolous.

From a developer perspective, the ideal and just end result has always seemed
rather obvious. However, the multi-year history of this case demonstrates the
correct legal answer not so obvious, at least from a legal perspective.

For example, settling the issue on fair use was definitely not how most people
thought/hoped this would shake out way back in the beginning of the law
suit(s).

~~~
sounds
This law suit is frivolous based on the assumption that APIs are not
copyrightable (a very reasonable assumption in 2009).

~~~
icebraining
But the result of the trial was that they _are_ copyrightable, so clearly it
wasn't frivolous.

------
tostitos1979
Despite the win, I think it would have been far better for the computer
industry if Google had bought Sun. Unlike other companies with crap (IMHO ...
Nokia, Motorola), Sun actually had stuff of value. This is a lesson that geeks
get but I'm not sure MBAs do or will ever get.

~~~
rodgerd
Sources at the time told me IBM were planning on buying Sun (for the
hardware/Telco business) and avoiding anti-trust problems by spinning software
off to Red Hat (Java, ZFS, Solaris, etc). They got cold feet over the spectre
of bribery investigations against Sun.

I weep for the parallel universe in which Red Hat had been in a position to
open all of Sun's technologies properly.

~~~
byuu
RedHat? I don't. Had that happened, Java, ZFS, MySQL, VirtualBox, etc would
now likely all be required components of systemd. (Yes, I'm being a little
facetious, but I really believe RedHat has some sinister ulterier motives.
They've been absolutely horrible with systemd, Gnome, GTK3, etc.)

What happened to Sun was an outright catastrophe, but we've mostly recovered
with OpenZFS, MariaDB, Jenkins, LibreOffice, etc. The major piece we're
missing is a clean fork of VirtualBox. Android's also not in a good state to
replace desktop Java, but it could conceivably be one day at least.

~~~
kagamine
To be fair, I use VB every day and it is getting frequent updates and hasn't
crashed in 2 years, it used to crash quite often when Sun developed it. Maybe
it could be something better, or amazing and different, but it's still free
and very stable, so I'm quite happy.

------
Cyph0n
Great news! This is a win for us software devs :)

I'd like to note that Ars Technica's coverage of the trial has been excellent
throughout.

~~~
Zenith77
No it's not. It effectively means I can copy code without respect to the
original author's rights, slap a new license on it, and call it a day. As long
as it's under the guise of some higher ideal of software development -- which
we know from historical accounts this was definitely not the case.

~~~
zardeh
What?

This case had literally nothing to do with copying code.

~~~
Zenith77
You do realize how this case got to the court it's in, right?

So yes, it most definitely isn't about copying code.

~~~
zardeh
>So yes, it most definitely isn't about copying code.

Exactly?

------
shmerl
Congratulations! It's a pity that previous decision declared APIs
copyrightable. This never should have happened. But at least fair use worked
out.

I wonder though how universal that ruling would be. Is any reimplementation of
APIs going to be fair use, and if not, what are the criteria?

------
grizzles
Apis are still copyrightable according to the Federal Circuit Court of
Appeals. That's not great, and I hope Congress does something about it for the
other languages (eg. C#/.NET) that haven't yet been whitelisted as fair to use
by the judicial system.

------
BinaryIdiot
Great news to a degree. It still means APIs can be copy-written which is a bit
unfortunate in my opinion. But they won on fair use which is still a victory.

Anyways I wonder how long this is going to keep going on for as I'm assuming
Oracle will appeal.

------
zerocrates
See, as ever, Florian Mueller for a... different perspective:
[http://www.fosspatents.com/2016/05/oracle-v-google-jury-
find...](http://www.fosspatents.com/2016/05/oracle-v-google-jury-finds-in-
favor-of.html)

~~~
Oletros
His level of insanity and hatred is beyond belief

~~~
kstrauser
No. He's a paid consultant to Oracle and Microsoft (see:
[http://www.businessinsider.com/oracle-to-google-which-
blogge...](http://www.businessinsider.com/oracle-to-google-which-bloggers-did-
you-pay-off-2012-8?op=1)) and his employers get their money's worth.

~~~
vesinisa
He still seems like a sociopath. Taking money to poison communities does not
glorify it.

~~~
kstrauser
I didn't say he's not scummy, just that he's not insane. It's my belief that
he's get paid well to say scummy things, which is rational if not tasteful.

------
chatmasta
What impact does this have on reverse engineering private APIs and
reimplementing them? And selling those reimplementations?

Can I reverse engineer the private API of a mobile app, then implement my own
client to talk to its servers?

What if I create my own "bridge" API to talk to the private API? Can I then
sell access to the bridge API, allowing developers to use the private API of
the app through my service?

And how does this relate to, e.g. running private world of warcraft servers
with modded code that allows purchasing in-game items? (See
[http://www.themarysue.com/blizzard-private-server-
lawsuit/](http://www.themarysue.com/blizzard-private-server-lawsuit/))

~~~
coldpie
These kinds of questions are why this court case is so incredibly disastrous.
Oracle has really done humanity an enormous disservice here, and any clients
of theirs should immediately sever contracts in return for their blatant
attempt to destroy software development. I'm not fucking exaggerating. If you
thought software patents were bad, Oracle just unleashed a whole new level of
hell.

~~~
chatmasta
I'm not sure if you misread my questions or I misread your answer. I'm asking
about _new_ opportunities this precedent allows, not existing ones it forbids.
For example, the private WoW server case was ruled in favor of Blizzard. With
this new precedent, would a court come to the same conclusion?

~~~
farcical_tinpot
The OP certainly did answer your questions and since you asked the questions
you did you probably already know the answers ;-).

~~~
chatmasta
Haha, cheers. I'm not quite ready to commit to a ;-) just yet however.

------
musesum
> "For me, declaring code is not code," Page said.

Unless, of course, the declaring code is declaring declaring code, as in
Prolog and its ilk.

------
Analemma_
Now we have to hope this doesn't get overturned by a Circuit judge like it did
before. Still, this is excellent news.

~~~
davidw
I'll admit to not really understanding the path this has taken through the
courts - I haven't been following that closely though.

~~~
phasmantistes
A short summary:

* Oracle sues Google on copyright grounds.

* Case is overseen by Judge Alsup, who taught himself Java in order to understand the technical merits of the case. Case is split into two phases: copyright and patents.

* A jury finds Google to be infringing on copyright, but deadlocks on the fair-use defense. The jury finds Google to be non-infringing on all patents.

* Judge Alsup breaks the jury's deadlock on copyright by ruling that APIs are not copyrightable in the first place.

* Oracle appeals the patent claim, Google simultaneously appeals the copyright claim (it wasn't 100% in their favor).

* The Federal Court of Appeals (9th Circuit) hears the case due to the patent portion. It overturns Alsup's decision, declaring that APIs are in fact copyrightable. It remands the case back down to Judge Alsup.

* Google petitions the Supreme Court to hear the case instead, but the Court declines the request.

* Judge Alsup oversees a second trial, this time solely on the fair-use merits.

* The jury finds that Google's use of the APIs indeed falls under fair use.

~~~
wtallis
The Federal Circuit isn't the Ninth Circuit, and that's really the whole
problem. The Federal Circuit is the special-purpose patent appeals court. For
a case like this where they were hearing the appeal because there were patent
claims, they are supposed to treat the non-patent issues in the manner of the
local circuit (9th).

The Federal Circuit has a history of ruling in favor of broader intellectual
property rights and being periodically reined in by the Supreme Court. They do
it for patents, and when Oracle uses a losing patent claim to get copyright
issues before the Federal Circuit, they rule for expanding copyright. If
Oracle hadn't included patent claims, the appeal would have gone before the
Ninth Circuit and probably lost. The Federal Circuit did a farcical job of
applying Ninth Circuit copyright precedent, especially in contrast to the
thorough job Alsup did.

------
bitmapbrother
Oracle will likely appeal, but they'll lose again. Overturning a unanimous
jury verdict is very difficult.

------
jhh
What I don't understand about this: Why didn't Google/Android use Java under
the Open Source license under which it has been provided. Wouldn't that have
saved all the trouble?

~~~
anarres
When Google started Android (2005ish, iirc), OpenJDK didn't exist yet.

~~~
jhh
Well that's a simple and convincing answer. Thanks.

------
jhanschoo
While it is unpopular among most HN readers that APIs be found to fall under
copyright, I don't see how it affects software interoperatability in the long
term.

It seems to me that all that this necessitates is for software publishers to
include an open license for their APIs, or to release it into the public
domain.

In fact, it might even be beneficial, since companies can license different
APIs to different customers, and have additional legal force prohibiting the
use of APIs that are unofficial or unauthorized to them.

------
blacktulip
Excuse me here but I have to ask. Is this final? Because I've read that Oracle
won the case some time ago.

~~~
pfg
The district court originally ruled that APIs weren't copyrightable. The
appeals court overturned that decision, ruling that APIs were copyrightable,
but that it could be fair use. The case went back to the district court for
that point, and the jury now decided that it was in fact fair use.

~~~
simcop2387
Yep, and that fair use argument is why the SCOTUS declined to hear it at the
time. Be interesting to see if it goes back that way or if Oracle decides it's
not going to get anything from doing so.

------
mark_l_watson
I remember that afternoon deserts served in Google restaurants when I worked
there were very tasty - I hope everyone is celebrating with a good snack :-)

Seriously, I think this is a good verdict. I think that Oracle has been doing
a good job sheparding Java, but this law suit really seemed to me to be too
much of a money grab.

------
pavpanchekha
This is possibly my best-case scenario. APIs are copywriteable (so says the
Supreme Court), and this seems reasonable, since some APIs really are very
good and treating them like an artistic work has benefits. But implementing
them is fair use, preserving the utility of APIs for compatibility. Great
news!

~~~
magicalist
> _APIs are copywriteable (so says the Supreme Court)_

The Supreme Court denying cert _is not_ an endorsement of a ruling. No
precedent is set. They could completely disagree with the lower court's ruling
but not take the case for any number of reasons: there's no split between
circuits, so they want to let other opinions develop before taking on a
subject, they don't believe the case details are a good test case for the
subject (something the FSF argued was the case for this suit), etc.

[https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/certiorari](https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/certiorari)

~~~
dragonwriter
They also may not have taken the case because it was an interlocutory appeal,
and the Supreme Court has a strong bias toward taking appeals of final
judgements and avoiding interlocutory appeals unless, in addition to a good
reason to take the case, there's also a good reason not to let it go to final
judgement before taking it.

It's still possible that the Supreme Court could take this case and Oracle
might go back to losing on copyrightability rendering fair use moot.

------
brotherjerky
This is fantastic news!

------
cm3
So, APIs are still thought as copyright'able and that was a different trial,
right?

Now Google was ruled okay to use that single, small function, or what was this
about?

A little more info would be nice for those who aren't following this closely.

~~~
anarres
In 2012, court rules Java APIs are not copyrightable. In 2014, that decision
was appealed and overruled, declaring Java APIs copyrightable. The case was
sent back to determine if Google's reimplementing APIs was "fair use" of
copyrighted material.

Now we saw that trial, where jury ruled on fair use. It was fair use.

(nothing to do with any small function, that was in 2012)

------
jcdavis
What is the room for appeals here?

This is a massive ruling, heres to hoping it stands

~~~
revelation
This is already the retrial, I'm pretty sure it's dead now.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Nope. Oracle can appeal to the Federal Circuit.

~~~
revelation
Of course they can. But appeals typically have little chance of success, and a
case that has already gone all up the appeal chain once and had a complete
retrial?

No way.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
It hasn't had a complete retrial. In the first trial, the judge (Alsup) ruled
that APIs cannot be copyrighted. Google also had a fair-use defense, but
didn't waste time on the trial with that, because Alsup had already ruled that
APIs could not be copyrighted. Oracle lost that trial.

Oracle appealed, and at the appeals court won a ruling that APIs _could_ be
copyrighted. The case got sent back down for a trial that was _only_ about the
fair-use defense, not a complete retrial.

------
pjmlp
If Oracle decides to drop Java development, I wonder who will bother to pick
it up.

Surely not Google, if they hadn't bothered the first time around.

~~~
geodel
Considering IBM/SAP are vowing to bring Swift to masses on servers and
clients. Apple/MS dropped Java quite a while back. I do not see any big vendor
with serious money to pick Java development. Redhat is there but I doubt they
will when they might be looking to push Ceylon.

Of course it is hypothetical as I absolutely do not think Oracle will consider
doing such thing.

~~~
pjmlp
Oracle had already a big bet on Java before they bough Sun.

Many of the Oracle-hate group aren't aware of the NC Computer and the
JavaStation, or that already in 2000 most of the Oracle GUI tools were Java
based.

So on one hand they have lots of interest in Java and have been better than
Sun in its last years, but they also have not been handling JEE, JavaFX and
mobile support on iOS and WP that well.

Also many of the nice goodies in language evolution have been postponed for
Java 10 (AOT, value types, JNI replacement).

Being too old at this game I have the same feelings that Java might follow
Clipper or Delphi footsteps, if Oracle looses interest in the tech stack and
no one picks it up, regardless how ingrained Java is nowadays.

IBM is not only looking at Swift, they also have made J9 modular as a
framework for implementing language runtimes.

------
spelunker
Is this legit? If so, thank goodness.

~~~
Bahamut
[http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/05/google-wins-
trial...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/05/google-wins-trial-
against-oracle-as-jury-finds-android-is-fair-use/)

------
satysin
So is this really over for good now? Can Oracle appeal and drag this on for
another decade?

------
yeukhon
I for one would like to have a public digital recording of the actual trial
available...

------
EddieRingle
Hopefully soon we can stop focusing on legalities and get back to building
cool stuff.

~~~
seangrant
When's the last time Oracle has built "cool stuff"?

~~~
glibgil
April 28th, 2016 according to vagrant on my Mac
[https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Changelog](https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Changelog)

At least I think it is pretty cool (and very gracious of Oracle)

~~~
wtallis
You're not exactly setting the bar very high for Oracle. VirtualBox was mostly
GPL'd before its developer was bought by Sun, which was later bought by
Oracle. Saying that it's "very gracious" of Oracle to not kill a successful
project or fire all its developers makes it sound like you've been brainwashed
under an oppressive tyranny.

~~~
glibgil
You're a special kind of ingrate. Oracle spends a great deal of its treasure
on open source software. They maintain and innovate on those projects at great
cost to themselves. You have no leg to stand on. Oracle is doing a nice thing
for the engineering community. They don't have to, but they do. It is nice of
them. You are being rude

~~~
wtallis
> "They maintain and innovate on those projects at great cost to themselves."

 _Net_ cost? Most certainly not. That's not how Oracle works at all.

Saying that they aren't entirely opposed to participating in mutually
beneficial arrangements is still setting the bar pretty damn low and is not a
distinction worthy of any praise.

~~~
glibgil
That's not how favors work. When someone does something nice for the
engineering community you use it with gratitude (if you do use it). Oracle
makes cool software. It doesn't cost anything to aknowledge it, but it sure
makes you look like an ass to argue that they don't. So many people use
vagrant right now and it just works because of VirtualBox. That's cool. No bar
to clear. It's just nice that Oracle paid for that

~~~
mratzloff
Vagrant works with many other VMs as of version 1.1. Oracle didn't create
VirtualBox, they bought it. I avoid using it, like I avoid depending on _any_
Oracle-owned software. Especially if it means I would be obligated to thank
them for it.

~~~
glibgil
Oracle paid for all the work done on VirtualBox. They paid for the past work
and they pay for current work. You can dismiss it as something they bought,
but that doesn't address that they paid for all the past work done on it when
they bought it. It doesn't address that they pay to maintain and innovate on
it. Everyone knows vagrant works with other VMs. Almost everyone uses
VirtualBox. You are not obligated to thank them, but you are an ingrate if you
do use it and don't have an attitude of thankfulness that it works well for
you (if that is the case). I mean, if a person does that they really are
ungrateful. What else do they complain about? Do I hate working with them?
Probably. Attitude and acknowledgement of the way things actually work and who
pays for them is a big part of being a nice person

------
crispyambulance
Perhaps the jury was not as clueless as some here were assuming?

------
steffenfrost
Would swizzling methods violate copyright?

------
known
Patents and Open source is Oxymoron

------
ShaneBonich
That was expected. Happy for Google.

------
JackPoach
Good for google

------
ilostmykeys
Oracle is evil.

------
benmcnelly
IANAL

------
ChrisLomont
This is 100% inaccurate

That story leaves out significant details, and his description of the reason
is wrong. He leaves out significant prior sources and reasons, to the point
your statement "It was not created to help artists or whoever" is simply
wrong.

Wikipedia provides a far better history with extensive sources [1]. Note for
example the section "Early Developments" where they list precursors to
anything in your source as having significant components of individual and
author rights.

Note also in the US copyright law _was_ started by author guilds wanting
_author_ protection, and the first federal copyright act in 1790 was about
protection for authors, not for printers. This was an extension of many states
laws that had passed _author_ protections.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_copyright_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_copyright_law)

~~~
dang
We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11782568](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11782568)
and marked it off-topic.

~~~
ChrisLomont
It was a reply to DannyBee's post claiming copyright "was not created to help
artists or whoever". It starts with "This is 100% inaccurate" which is why I
began this the same way.

I note others have since reposted the same links in reply to DannyBee for the
same reason.

How it is off topic since it directly addresses that claim?

Did it get detached from the parent, removing context?

~~~
dang
It's off-topic because it turned into a tedious back-and-forth in which you
became increasingly uncivil. You've done that repeatedly in arguments on HN.
Please don't do that.

When comments get aggressive and litigious, good conversation flees the room.
Such spats also go inevitably off-topic, since how-right-I-am-and-how-wrong-
you-are is not a topic.

~~~
ChrisLomont
You're right. I'll do better in the future. Sorry.

------
jrochkind1
thank god.

------
known
Say no to software patents

------
VeejayRampay
Nelson Muntz would rejoice at this verdict. Oracle's claim was laughable.

------
7ero
Google copies API from Oracle, yet I still have to come up with my own
solutions to get a job at Google? Fuckin' Google.

------
suyash
Today is a sad day for Silicon Valley. Our legal process has demonstrated how
incompetent it is when it comes to Technology IP protection.

~~~
solotronics
How so? My understanding was that Oracle was suing Google over the use of an
API. This seems quite unreasonable to me but that could be due to my tech
background and lack of legal knowledge.

~~~
mSparks
While I don't really agree with the OP, I totally understand the sentiment.
It's really an acute issue between legal copyright and the new reality of
modern computing. It used to be that copyright sustained our industries.
Pottery, Pattern designs on fabric, and later music and films.

In the modern world however, it seems positively damaging, with the likes of
China, with no respect for IP and copyright rocketing ahead, most of the
innovation happening in the west is in ways to bypass it, GNU is Not UNIX,
Lame ain't an MP3 Encoder... and the old guard that depended on the old way
falling ever further behind.

In the days of getting material simply by asking a computer to fetch what you
want (and nothing more than a few watts of electricity being consumed to do
so) copyright simply doesn't make sense in any respect.

But I suspect that opinion is just as unwelcome as the OPs.

~~~
stsp
Additional reading material:
[http://questioncopyright.org/learn](http://questioncopyright.org/learn)

