Oracle v Google could clear way for copyright on languages, APIs
Computer languages and software interfaces may fall under copyright protection if Oracle succeeds in its Java lawsuit against Google. Amazingly, "copyfighters" appear to have paid little or no notice to this rare extension of copyright into new realms. But the consequences and costs for the software industry could be enormous. …
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Re: Patented API's
I think you're referring to the antitrust case, which had nothing to do with patents or copyright, and everything to do with Microsoft trying to have it's cake and eat it. Basically MS were publishing one set of APIs, but then using additional "undocumented" or "unsupported" calls in IE, to make it part of the OS, and give them an unfair advantage over Netscape (as 'twas).
Re: Patented API's
I should know that, damn thanks for correcting me
*thumbs up
"could clear way"?
And I "could" get hit in the head by a meteorite next time Im doing my teeth.
APIs have as much chance of getting patented/copyrighted as they did when SCO tried the same trick with IBM eight years ago when they subsequently got their asses handed to them.
ie None.
And in any case, Oracle need to be careful about what they wish for.
They made their $ on the back of someone else's query language.
Why do I get the Idea
That the people fighting these cases know nothing about technology, and have probably never written a line of code in thier life.
Computer languages and software interfaces may fall under copyright protection
No, not may,
They do. Everything created has copyright unless you put it in the public domain.
Re: Computer languages and software interfaces may fall under copyright protection
No, every original expression of an idea has copyright unless put in the public domain. (Well, that's the gist; there are all sorts of other factors that a copyright lawyer could explain to you if you had a year or two.)
The general consensus seems to have been that the languages and the APIs are the ideas, not the expression. I'm not sure if I agree with that or not, but it's a valid argument that apparently hasn't yet been fully tested in court.
Re: Computer languages and software interfaces may fall under copyright protection
Look at it this way: who has the copyright on English?
Nobody. And nobody will get it either, or any other spoken or written language, because it's a stupid idea to copyright language. Yet change the language to java and suddenly you seem to think it makes sense. Why? Both are frameworks for the expression of ideas. We could, if we wanted, hold conversations in Java or any other programming language, and we'd be able to express ideas and understand one another just as any other spoken language (with a little more difficulty and syntactical sugar, I suppose, but still).
APIs and interfaces are like idiomatic, culturally shared shorthand for particular concepts that might be expressed in other, longer ways. They're the equivalent of a raised eyebrow at the sight of Orlowski arguing against copyrighting something or the exhalation of air that says so much about your mood, what you want, what you don't want, and just how stupid some people can be to believe idiocies that make no sense.
Do you understand the problem with copyrighting language now?
Re: Computer languages and software interfaces may fall under copyright protection
If the law allows copyrighting a language, it enables a private tax to be levied on all programs and expressions using that language. That's a massive restraint on trade.
A narrower attempt at copyrighting was defeated in the automobile compatible parts market. There is only one way an exhaust pipe can sensibly route under a vehicle, based on the design of the underside of that vehicle. Giving control over the sale of compatible parts to the original manufacturer was considered an unreasonable restraint on competition in that space.
Copyrighting an API would lead to a similar constraint on competition and without competition we all become poorer.
This whole trial is flawed
Oracle are completely clutching at straws with this. Their case has been blown out of the water along with the billions they were hoping to scoop in damages. Just go back to the first stages of this lawsuit and see what Oracle were claiming and the money involved.
The Judge seems extremely clued up. There is so much to this case that it is hard to explain all the failings in Oracle's argument but suffice to say the author seems to have only scratched the surface and taken a sniff.
The comparisons between SCO v The World are startling and the coincidence lies with the lawyers representing the antagonist - BSF.
Just remember that Sun were all for Android, celebrating its launch and the positive effects for the Java community, to have another system that allowed developers to write and learn Java. A few years later after Android has become extremely successful a new owner decides it wants to monetize its Sun purchase and this is the result - nothing about morals or IP or Copyrights.
Java is different from C, C++ and other languages. It is a combination of syntax, an API and a virtual machine.
C and C++ do not typically provide set API (they often have standard libraries and these are sometimes copyrighted), the OS provides the runtime and the API.
So in this case it is quite right for patents and copyrights on this to be defended. Sun only tolerated Google's use of Java derived technology due to Google's overall contribution to the Java community. Oracle are obviously less tolerant.
"C and C++ do not typically provide set API (they often have standard libraries and these are sometimes copyrighted), the OS provides the runtime and the API."
Not really true. Neither C, C++ nor Java absolutely requires the use of programming libraries, but they are required to do anything useful. In that respect, they are no different. Just because there is a standard API generally used with JAVA doesn't mean that it is an integrated part of the Java syntax.
@Giles Jones
C and C++ do not typically provide set API (they often have standard libraries and these are sometimes copyrighted), the OS provides the runtime and the API.
Wrong. The C and C++ standards provide for two kinds of implementation: hosted and freestanding. For hosted implementations the library API is fully defined (the standards also define headers that must be present in freestanding implementations). Implementations of that library API can be provided by the compiler vendor, the OS, or a third party, and are always copyrighted. But the API itself isn't copyrighted (although the text describing it is) . And for the record, I have never used a freestanding implementation.
Isn't WIPO a treaty, and hnce...
Since this seems to be covered by WIPO and other international treaties, and such treaties have a special status under US law, somewhere between statute law and the Constitution, how can Oracle win?
"In recent years, a strangely zealous campaign against patent protection for software has been successfu"
Which planet have you been living on? "Recent years" seem to have been chock-full of patent trolling from where I'm sat. The campaign against it can't have been that successful.
Google has it right...
If a language, something that is used to create expressive works, is copyright able, then by extension all works created with the language are derivitives. Take computing out of the equation, English can be used to create sets of instructions, indeed that was a longtime goal of many computer languages, to make them 'english-like'. Would Oracle consider English copyright able? SQL? COBOL? Esperanto?
C
Imagine if Oracle wins. The next day, the guy that invented C will sue the entire planet for using his language and will become the first trillionarie ever. With a big T.
I don't get it at all
Disclaimer. I am just a simple developer who has been writing code for 15 years, some of this are API's that are being used by some our customers.
So I know that creating a good API takes time and effort. It's easy to misinterprete function and parameter names and nobody ever wants to read the documentation. You have to take special care when you create the interfaces. Since it takes time to create something it should be worth something no?
Why not compare it with a writer who writes a book or a musician who writes a song?
Anyway I don't really like Java nor Oracle, but SUN spent time on creating it and it should be worth something unless they give it away. Oracle bought SUN so now they own Java.
Simple as that.
Probably not.
What am I missing?
And what's that stuff about a sqrt that always returns zero? Seriously are they debating at that level?
Also I don't understand the google everything-should-be-for-free attitude. Like the register pointed out before they can only do this because they have vast advertising income. That's very scary to me since they could waste normal software vendors.
Re: I don't get it at all
"And what's that stuff about a sqrt that always returns zero? Seriously are they debating at that level?"
Well, Oracle's arguing that they own the syntax.
Google's response is that you could write an API with the same syntax but every function returning a different result, and it would be silly for Oracle to claim that they own that one, too, because they're different in every way that actually matters. So obviously the syntactical argument fails. That's the point.
C doesn't have any set API's? Great, then Ken Thompson and Ritchie's estate can sue anyone who has ever implemented <stdio.h> regardless whether it was re-implemented (and copyrighted) That should cover just about everyone using a computer.
comment this out.
Just remove the comments from the programming and now the entire program is entirely copyright free!
Oh sorry I was using the google brain emulator.
Hell, I don't know
But I do know this, Andrew, maybe you can make sense of it ...
1. There is no such thing as a "Private Language". It cannot exist through reason alone, but who ever said IT was reasonable.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/private-language/
2. The US LOC who maintains ISO 639, has two sets of codes: one for Terminology and one for Bibliography.
http://www.rustprivacy.org/2012/urn/lang/display/ Terminology
http://www.rustprivacy.org/2012/urn/lang/person/ Bibliography
3. RFC4646 covers "Terminology" only
"Language tags are used to help identify languages, whether spoken,
written, signed, or otherwise signaled, for the purpose of
communication. This includes constructed and artificial languages,
but excludes languages not intended primarily for human
communication, such as programming languages."
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4646.txt
Ok, put this all together and IT has invented that which does not exist (see #1 above)
Oh yes, and one more thing ...
The US governs and writes laws in English (Terminology) but when the Census asks the question differently, "What Language do you speak at home ?" the answer is 110+ different (Bibliography) languages (per American Community Survey). Both Oracle and Google imagine they own the last couple of inches between your ears ... new circle of hell under construction.
On the plus side
As with the ridiculous pursuit of IP / royalties / frivolous copyright and such in other areas, if this did actually happen and programming languages became encumbered with this nonsense, the offshoot would eventually be a community created language specifically created to be free, and without encumbrance. Given that such a language would be conceived in modern times, it may well have plenty of nice features that everyone wishes the older languages had... unless ofcourse they'd already all been patented.
Anyone making future languages for future Quantum computing, please bare all this crap in mind.
OED
Does this mean that the Oxford English Dictionary own copyright the english language then?
I seem to remember a Goons episode where Moriaty patented or copyrighted the word "help". Perhaps Oracle could try that next.
Oddites of copyright
If my friend takes a picture, it is his picture and his copyright. If I take a copy of his picture, I am infringing his copyright. If, however, I stood beside him and took my own picture, which is practically identical, that's my picture that I can exercise copyright over.
Oracle might have a case for infringement of the API being copied as no doubt that has copyright status, but if Google's JVM is a clean room version based upon the API, surely it is no different to my taking the same photo as my friend?
Powerflex case says Oracle will lose
This precise question, of whether a language or API can be protected by copyright, was addressed in the case between Data Access Corporation and Powerflex Corporation. The High Court of Australia says it cannot, so Data Access lost, and Oracle will too.
See http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/high_ct/1999/49.html
New form of IP protection required
It has been obvious for decades that neither copyright nor patents are a good match for the kind of IP protection required for computer programs, including the program called JAVA.
[Computer programs, aspects of computer programs, source code of computer programs, implementations of computer programs] have been squeezed into the patent/copyright mold so that they are covered by pre-existing international treaties. Yes, that also means that they are covered by pre-existing national laws, but we have seen changes in national laws over the last 4 decades. The limitation is that there is not an international treaty structure for non-patent, non-copyright, non-trademark IP.
The result is strange contortions to fit IP into the existing structures.
Re: New form of IP protection required
Java isn't a program. It's a language. Various Java compilers, VMs and libraries are copyrighted.
It's as bad an idea for a language to be protected by IP as it would be for all roads to become toll roads. You'd have to pay to get outside your front door or gate, which would prevent you offering your services and goods within a competitive marketplace. We'd all be poorer that way so we don't do it that way.
Roads and languages are public property for good reasons.
Isn't this a bit like
Leo Fender, or Les Paul trying to claim that all music played on one of their instruments belongs to them ?
Anyone got a time machine?
If so, I'll borrow it to head back in time and take out copyright protection on any programming language that encases parameters in curved brackets, methods in curly brackets, uses the word "print" to display stuff on the screen, the acronym "int" for integers...
Oh, and for good measure, I'll take out a patent on the ability for any programming language to compile instructions into an intermediate bytecode format...
Perhaps also, given a certain fruity company's attacks on a rival, maybe I could also take out a patent on electronic devices housed in a black case, or the PCB, or the use of thin bands of copper for electrical connectors...
Isn't this a bit like ...
Yes, it is.
And it's also a bit like "Your Slaves picked My Cotton". What neither Oracle nor Google seem to grasp is that they are not intelligent life. They have motivation but no need: A Guitar is not a Lawnmower; although we (ok, me) "intelligent types" can make one sound like the other and if life was fair, I could send Leo and Les an invoice.
I disagree with some of the sentiments of this article.
The whole 'skirmish', as you describe it, is lawyers fighting within the practice of their own profession, which is to try to use law as a weapon of combat to secure an advantage.
They do this mostly because they need money, and that is the way of their profession.
To right-thinking people, it is disgusting.
Then, the issue of the use of Java in Android is very simply seen: the creators of both systems were originally intending to create something useful, not as a means of making money for anyone, but as a means for people to use computers.
This original intention is distorted by any attempt to use it to 'make money', and once again, it is seen by right-thinking people that such an attempt is disgusting.
The remedy is to abandon this vice that allows money and advantage to drive activities, and law needs to see through this and stop colluding with the money-grabbing by pretending it can arbitrate.
The law should simply dismiss litigants, the process of litigation, and itself, recommending as it does so that the money system be reformed to work in the interests of people and not against them.
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