
Supreme Court seeks Trump administration views on Google-Oracle copyright feud - partingshots
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-google-oracle-idUSKCN1S51CQ
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tracker1
The whole idea of an API being copyrightable is insane to begin with...
Interoperability invariably requires it.

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garmaine
Interoperability is not the goal of all API’s.

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mieseratte
I would contend that the definition of the word "interface" is, in essence,
interoperability.

> a point where two systems, subjects, organizations, etc. meet and interact.

An interface is that which allows two systems to work together, in
conjunction. That is, interoperability:

> the ability of equipment or groups to operate in conjunction with each
> other.

Whether or not the intent of our legal code is to allow for drop-in-
replacement interoperability of systems is something I have no domain
knowledge with which to comment.

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garmaine
That’s a pretty useless definition. In this context interoperability means
being able to substitute one product for another because they have the same
API. Sometimes this is the intent (e.g. SQL). Sometimes not.

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salawat
Considering that an API is a mere symbolic/semantic gateway closer to a
mathematical expression, I'm sorry, your interpretation would seem to be more
useless. Nothing says the underlying functionality exposed by an API has to
functionally line up. I could implement a persistence layer through Pair(K. V)
or any other myriad sets of logic, but just because I use that set characters
to render that API in a virtual machine, I should be open to extortion?

Programming languages, and API's in particular are useless alone. This is just
an attempt to try to monetize a gigantic segment, which if allowed will lead
to an inevitable fracturing of just about every semantic convention behind an
ever growing wall of lawfare.

It's bloody math. Stop trying to treat it like a bloody Widget.

For God's sake, you're saying Oracle should be able to gatekeep

Pair(K key, V value).

Great. So as long as anyone uses that Oracle gets to sue them? Great way to
hobble the industry.

Or are you seriously going to try to make the argument that all we need to do
is change the package names/method signatures of the entire JDK without
altering it structurally and we're gold?

This is a space where legalese starts to enter its' own butthole without
reconciling what you're trying to do with what you're actually doing.

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pcbro141
_“Look, having Java — my uncle was a great professor and senior developer, Dr.
John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, MIT, very
good, very smart — you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a
liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I’m one
of the smartest people anywhere in the world — it’s true! — but when you’re a
conservative Republican they try — oh, do they do a number — that’s why I
always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there,
did this, built a fortune — you know I have to give my like credentials all
the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged — but you look at the Oracle
deal, the thing that really bothers me — it would have been so easy, and it’s
not as important as these copyrights are — Java is powerful; my uncle
explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 20 years
ago; he would explain the power of what’s going to happen and he was right,
who would have thought? — but when you look at what’s going on with the Java
VM —it used to be real, now it’s virtual — but when it was real and even now,
I would have said it’s all in the API; fellas, and it is fellas because, you
know, they don’t, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now
than the men, so, you know, it’s gonna take them about another 150 years — but
Google are great negotiators, the Google are great negotiators, so, and they,
they just killed, they just killed us.”_

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d3ld0t
lmao

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AnimalMuppet
Why are they asking? Why do they care what the Trump Administration thinks
about the copyrightability of APIs?

Last time around, the Obama administration suggested that the Supreme Court
_not_ hear the case, and they didn't. I'm hoping that the Trump administration
decides the opposite, if only out of spite for Obama...

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Skunkleton
Shouldn't the supreme court specifically _not_ ask any other branch if they
should review a case? Isn't that the point of independent branches of
government?

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turc1656
It struck me as odd as well, but the article mentions near the end that it
apparently does happen from time to time, which I was not aware of. I share
your viewpoint, though. Not sure why the USSC would ever ask the executive
branch whether or not it should hear a case. The justices are more than
capable of determining if it warrants their time.

I suspect the reason for the request is that this could have a significant and
unexpected downstream effect should they hear the case and end up ruling in an
unforeseen manner. They could conceivably alter the copyright laws in serious
ways that no one wants.

That being said, I still think they should probably never ask for guidance
like this because the _effect_ of their ruling is not their problem. They need
to uphold the law. If there are unforeseen, undesirable consequences then it
is the job of the legislative branch to rectify that. This is what happened
with the Affordable Care Act. The USSC was given testimony that confirmed the
language, meaning, and reason behind one of the key portions - the requirement
that states must implement their own exchange to receive Federal subsidies for
healthcare to pass along to the newly insured citizens. This became a major
issue because a large number of states didn't create their own exchanges but
the Obama administration still wanted to dole out the subsidies. Instead of
upholding the law as written in clear language and which was confirmed by the
actual writers of that section of the bill, they instead did the exact
opposite and basically ruled that since ruling to uphold it as-is would
essentially destroy Obamacare, they would have to allow the subsidies because
that one clause would effectively destroy the entire program since the states
didn't take it up as expected (but not required). What should have happened in
that scenario is that the USSC should have upheld the language as written,
which would have forced the legislative branch to actually change/fix the law
with an amendment. But this was no longer politically possible and the court
knew that, so they instead ignored the law and basically re-wrote it - which
is a power they don't actually have.

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macintux
> ...which is a power they don't actually have.

Arguably they don't have the powers they _do_ actually have. The constitution
is very vague on the role of the court.

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tombert
I guess I don't know a lot about how the Supreme court works, but is this
normal? I know that the president is the one who appoints the justices, but
it's not like Donald Trump is a lawyer, or a programmer; he's ostensibly an
economics major and outside of some demagogical diatribe in one of his
speeches where he probably claims that all of this is simple, he's not
qualified to say whether the Supreme court would hear this.

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kyrra
Administrative Law is the key here. Departments within the executive branch
set their own guidance on certain topics, this is known as Chevron
deference[0]. Congress has pushed the details about a lot of our laws onto the
executive branch, which is why the FCC, EPA, and others are able to change
their rules and make companies/the-public adhere to new rules that didn't
happen due to a new law.

[0]
[https://ballotpedia.org/Chevron_deference_(doctrine)](https://ballotpedia.org/Chevron_deference_\(doctrine\))

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jcranmer
Uh, this case has nothing to do with administrative law. The issue (as
presented in Google's petition is):

> 1\. Whether copyright protection extends to a soft-ware interface.

> 2\. Whether, as the jury found, petitioner’s use of a software interface in
> the context of creating a new computer program constitutes fair use.

In other words, is the Federal Circuit appeals court off of its rocker.

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kyrra
Uhg, you're right and I can't edit now. That's what I get for not reading.

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verisimilitudes
It's asinine that this has gone on for so long. These giant corporations will
do whatever is in their best interest and crush anyone they can underfoot.

I doubt Google particularly cares about copyrightable APIs, sans their in the
sights. They're more than large enough to create their own languages and
whatnot and would probably like to prevent others from interoperating with
their software, as they do with websites that try to offer access to Youtube
without going directly through Google.

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amelius
There's a lot of legacy Java in Android, though, that is not easily replaced.

