
Google asks Supreme Court to overrule disastrous ruling on API copyrights - chopin
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/01/google-asks-supreme-court-to-overrule-disastrous-ruling-on-api-copyrights/
======
lawrenceyan
"The idea that I can be presented with a problem, set out to logically solve
it with the tools at hand, and wind up with a program that could not be
legally used because someone else followed the same logical steps some years
ago and filed for a patent on it is horrifying." \- John Carmack [1]

[1]
[http://web.archive.org/web/20010624154450/http://www.voodooe...](http://web.archive.org/web/20010624154450/http://www.voodooextreme.com/games/interviews/carmack/)

~~~
rjf72
He's talking about software patents. I wouldn't equate that with API
copyright. For many things discovering an algorithm to do something is just
that - a process more about 'discovery' than 'invention.' As an obvious
example in graphics, think about something like height mapped terrain. Anybody
of reasonable cleverness who thinks on the problem of how to represent terrain
in a 3D world is going to, at some point, "invent" height mapped terrain.
Whole system APIs, by contrast, are more of a creative expression in that
there are an infinite number of possible APIs. And for anything not completely
trivial, wholesale copying there is only going to happen by overt and intended
effort.

I'm not saying that APIs should or should not be protected by IP law -- only
that it's a different issue since the odds of unintended replication approach
zero very rapidly as the complexity of a system increase. So the question
becomes whether _intentional_ , and not strictly necessary, replication should
or should not be allowed.

~~~
75dvtwin
If I take a copyrighted text book on linear algebra,

then I copy its table of content.

then create my own text book (with unique material), where the table of
content is from the above book.

Did I just violate the copyright of the first text book ?

~~~
gnhrgkai
If the table of contents was dozens of pages long and you did it just so your
clients could stop using the copyrighted book, I think they would have a case.

------
quantum_state
Feel more education on software development for the Court is needed.

------
bunnycorn
This article is so one-sided it hurts.

