US Supreme Court rules for Google over Oracle [LWN.net]

US Supreme Court rules for Google over Oracle

Posted Apr 5, 2021 16:14 UTC (Mon) by excors (subscriber, #95769)
In reply to: US Supreme Court rules for Google over Oracle by bjartur
Parent article: US Supreme Court rules for Google over Oracle

If I'm reading it right, the ruling assumes that the API is copyrightable (without making a decision on whether it actually is or not), but determines that Google's use of it without permission from the copyright holder was acceptable as fair use.

Fair use seems like a tricky balance of multiple factors, and in this case (based on the summary) it considers that Google was using the API to create something substantially new, and that the copied lines were 0.4% of the Sun Java API, and that Google's use of the API probably didn't harm the copyright holder (because Sun would have failed in the mobile market regardless of Android's success), so on balance it's the kind of thing that fair use was meant to permit. If you're doing something different to what Google did (like reimplementing the entire API with the intention of competing with the copyright holder) then the same arguments won't apply. You'll need different arguments for fair use (which the judge might or might not agree with), or you'll need to get the Supreme Court to say that APIs aren't copyrightable.

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US Supreme Court rules for Google over Oracle

Posted Apr 5, 2021 18:33 UTC (Mon) by madscientist (subscriber, #16861) [Link] (2 responses)

They didn't assume API is copyrightable. They said "even if we DO assume API is copyrightable" this wouldn't matter because of the fair use doctrine. The dissenters wanted the court to make a ruling on API copyright but the majority specifically declined to do that. They basically said, technology is fast-moving and we don't want to prematurely issue decisions that could damage the industry so we'll find the narrowest possible decision.

US Supreme Court rules for Google over Oracle

Posted Apr 5, 2021 20:58 UTC (Mon) by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75) [Link] (1 responses)

Ruling on the narrowest available reasoning is a part of judicial restraint. If they can, judges will usually try to rule narrowly so their decision affects only the one case rather than broadly in a way that affects other cases. They can't necessarily avoid broad rulings- ruling in favor of Oracle in this case would have required them to decide that APIs were copyrightable- but when given a choice of reasons for ruling a specific way, they will usually choose the narrow grounds over the broad. This is true even of the Supreme Court, which has the power to set binding precedents and theoretically could change the law as it sees fit.

Even when looking at the details of the case, there's a clear hierarchy of reasoning. First they'll look at whether the plaintiff has the right to bring a suit and if they've chosen the right court. Then they'll look to see if their legal theory of the case is correct. Only when they've gone through that part will they bother looking at the facts.

US Supreme Court rules for Google over Oracle

Posted Apr 5, 2021 21:42 UTC (Mon) by Paf (subscriber, #91811) [Link]

That’s also because judges are intended wherever possible to rule on matters of law, not matters of fact. As I understand it, the theory is that deciding on facts is, ideally (in the US system at least), the job of a jury.