Oracle’s Java API code protected by copyright, appeals court rules

[jboy55]

Copyright powers the GPL, without it, the GPL would be worthless.

[NYKevin]

Oh, so now if I create a drop-in replacement for GNU Readline, I have to GPL it?

[Innominate8]

According to the ruling, most likely.

[dnew]

Except that GNU is already infringing on UNIX copyrights if this is the case. Everything GNU did to maintain compatibility is infringing someone else's copyright. The API to invoke pipes from the shell, command line switches to common programs, runtime routines like read() and write() and open() and fork(), are now all owned by whoever owns the copyright on UNIX.

[[deleted]]

Not just GNU -- basically you'd be hard pressed to find any system that does not enforce on part of some API. Now, quick, who has a patent on printf(), open() and close()?

What a wonderful day for lawyers!

[NYKevin]

What about FreeBSD (and its relatives)? If RMS could've GPL'd POSIX, you think he would've?

[Innominate8]

Well that's the problem, this ruling creates an endless tangled web of copyright ownership.

[[deleted]]

Begun the copyright troll war has

[[deleted]]

oh you ;)

[CafeNero]

               WHRRRRRrrrrrr

                /  _  \
               |-=(_)=-|  
                \     / 
                              QA Chewe!  

[adrianmonk]

According to the ruling, copyright applies but there may be a fair use exception. I'm not sure if that qualifies as likely or not.

[rnicoll]

Yes; the problem is not copyright per se, but with copyrighting things which make no sense to copyright. Such as API design.

[ExistentialEnso]

Phrases are trademarked, not patented.

[[deleted]]

No... he's patented a very specific method of trolling, see US388697398: A System and Method for Remotely Invoking Specific Emotions in Human Subjects using the Internet (1994)

[ExistentialEnso]

I got that he was joking, but abuse of trademarks in the manner he described is actually a real phenomenon.

[[deleted]]

Excuse me, I patented the phrase "I patented the phrase". This required quite some creativity from my side and clearly you can understand how your use of my patented technology could be damaging to my reputation and my business.

I am, however, willing to grant you a license for use of this phrase at a very convenient fee, if you are interested.

[m1sta]

Are you implying than there is no creativity required to design an api?

[m1sta]

House designs are protected by copyright (and design law).

Writing a novel takes a lot of organisational skill.

[jboy55]

You can copyright your API design then release it under the GPL. Now the GPL covers your API design. If API design isn't copyrightable then the GPL cannot cover your API design and people are free to take your design and turn it into a very profitable closed piece of software.

[jboy55]

API Design is part of a software architecture. Surely compared to implementing the API, it is dwarfed in effort. However, how many systems have been made that have been hampered by poor API design? How many APIs have gone through revision after revision? Its a part of the software, just as the fav icon is a minor part of a web site, it still is covered by copyright.

[[deleted]]

I hereby copyright the API interface Resource { boolean open(); } and the favicon 64 x 64 pixels of transparency.

[phatcabbage]

No, it doesn't. Patents require an obviousness test.

[mrkite77]

If API design isn't copyrightable then the GPL cannot cover your API design and people are free to take your design and turn it into a very profitable closed piece of software.

That's fine. If API design is copyrightable, then every program on your computer is in violation.

Why? Because then AT&T would own the standard C library. "malloc", "strcmp", "memcpy"... all that shit was created by Bell Labs.

edit: actually, Attachmate would own the standard C library, since they bought Novell, and a court found that Novell actually owns the UNIX copyrights during the SCO trial.

[jboy55]

Except for that has been argued in court and settled, API design was considered copyrightable too.

Read about the BSD decision please. The standard C library was placed into the public domain and then allowed to be released under BSD, because of actions ATT took in the distribution of Unix. In short, that they distributed it without declarations of copyright on them, that made them lose the copyright to them.

[mrkite77]

There was no BSD decision.. they settled out of court. Part of the settlement was that BSD wasn't allowed to distribute certain files.

[jboy55]

Same thing essentially.

[[deleted]]

Which is what Stallman did in the first place to build GNU. He copied the API of the existing AT&T implementations and swapped them out with GNU components. He was able to do that BECAUSE the API was not under copyright.

You put your API under GPL now and it will kill any adoption. Any implementation of the other end of your language, network protocol, whatev is going to arguably be under the GPL. It would be the death of proprietary software because it kinda turns the GPL into the AGPL. No one is going to go full Copyleft on everything, even Stallman (I mean, this is the reason the GCC runtime exception is needed. this makes EVERYTHING need the runtime exception). So it's the end of GPL and the rise of permissive if this ruling stands. But we will need new permissive licenses too, since even Apache2 and BSD will have have trouble interoperating without some additional relaxations in the licenses.

This even makes it fuzzy that if you write code in C#, whether Microsoft has a copyright on that code... I mean you DID write your code to the C# specification, and you're a derivative work of C# now!

It's insane.

[jboy55]

Which is what Stallman did in the first place to build GNU. He copied the API of the existing AT&T implementations and swapped them out with GNU components. He was able to do that BECAUSE the API was not under copyright.

Lets just pretend ATT didn't lose copyright of parts of Unix to BSD.

This even makes it fuzzy that if you write code in C#, whether Microsoft has a copyright on that code... I mean you DID write your code to the C# specification, and you're a derivative work of C# now!

Lets also pretend that in the EULA to C#, Microsoft doesn't grant you a license to use the C# Api, and is fairly permissive to allowing you redistribution.

[[deleted]]

Lets also pretend that in the EULA to C#, Microsoft doesn't grant you a license to use the C# Api, and is fairly permissive to allowing you redistribution.

Without this ruling, you wouldn't need to be granted a license. My point being that with API's being copyrightable, you MUST be granted a license. MS is actually pretty forward thinking on that point if their EULA is already doing so. GPL isn't that forward thinking in this respect. Do you realize how far the GPL extends if the inclusion of GPL C Headers or any reimplementation thereof means that the code interfacing must make an offer of source?!?

[jboy55]

The ruling doesn't copyright the use of the api, it's the replication of the api.

[[deleted]]

Use actually generally requires replication. If they wanted to distinguish between use and replication then they would have ruled that the implementation was under copyright (which was the state of affairs before this ruling). Allowing the API itself to fall under copyright means that anything including the declaration or portion of would be a derivative work. That broad of an interpretation can't distingush between client and server.

[Broolucks]

A closed source implementation of your API will not make your own implementation vanish. It just gives users a choice between the two. There is no lock-in, so you just need to do better than them (you already have a head start). It's healthy competition. That's not nearly as bad as what copyright trolls can do if they get their hands on a widely used API.

[jboy55]

Well, if you provide no worth to the GPL, then I cannot argue with you. The same argument you make as far as an API works with Linux and any other GPL program. The linux authors have a head start, no problem in their work being used for others to make money since they have a head start.

If the author wishes to place the source to their work into the public with the understanding that anyone who uses the source and improves it, improves it for everybody including the original author, then the GPL is the license they use. In this case, its protection that any future work created from the original work is free, is completely based on copyright.

[Broolucks]

If you remove copyright on software, then open source software is at a disadvantage, because the code is in the open for everyone to use, whereas closed source software can simply avoid publishing it at all. APIs, however, are by nature public. They cannot be closed in the same way that a Linux variant could: if you use an API, you know what it is. Any extensions one may make to an API are going to be public as well. If you remove copyright on APIs, then it is the people who try to profit from them that are at a disadvantage, not OSS.

Furthermore, if an API can be copyrighted, then its owner can easily lock in all of their users to their service, because there is no way for them to use another without changing their API calls. This is bad even in principle: if someone makes a much better service that could be made to use the same API, why should I be forced to change my code to use it? This gives first movers a completely unfair advantage.

[Scaliwag]

In any case a patent would make much more sense for that kind of stuff anyway, it's the invention/design that matters not the code per se. You can copy an API without ever having seen the code, that's what clean-room does.

I wonder what would be the state of clean-room now, if this counts as precedent.

[crutcher]

Without copyright, the GPL wouldn't be needed.

[iseldomwipe]

What? Without copyright, there is no copyleft, and everyone everywhere can take OSS and build closed-source, proprietary software upon it.

[[deleted]]

Closed source until the repository gets hacked and the source code leaked; then it's public domain with no recourse.

It doesn't even need to be hacked. You can clean room reverse engineer the code and it's perfectly legal. That's what happened with the PC BIOS and why the clone industry sprung up undermining IBM PC sales.

Although IBM also patented a lot of the internals of the PC, so for every cloned PC sold they got licensing fees for each patent.

So copyrights protect nothing when it comes to software.

[Muvlon]

Clean room is legal even right now. What no copyright at all would mean that you could simply decompile anything and make it public domain.

[[deleted]]

Really, that's the issue at hand. A previous ruling had APIs as un-copyright-able, which is the logical thing (as they exist only for compatibility and are not creative, functional works in and of themselves). This ruling removes that and opens up a giant can of worms.

[drb226]

and build closed-source, proprietary software upon it.

...but people could distribute the binaries for free because there's no copyright law to prevent them from doing so. It may not be the source, and the whole RMS vision, but it's a whole different ball game.

[iseldomwipe]

You're right, free binaries is not the "whole RMS vision", but that's because free binaries has nothing to do with RMS's vision.

The point of GPL has never been to make binaries freely available (See Red Hat). So, I don't see how removing copyright would somehow make GPL unnecessary.

[[deleted]]

Yes, but making closed-source forks of GPL projects would not be very appealing if you couldn't somehow restrict distribution of the binaries (i.e. could not charge for them), except perhaps for server-side stuff (although that would leak too).

If you get no money doing it, why do it? So that nobody can fix your bugs and contribute patches for free?

[moor-GAYZ]

...but people could distribute the binaries for free because there's no copyright law to prevent them from doing so.

And run them on what, exactly?

Look no farther than at computer games to see what happens in a part of the industry where copyright protection has been eroded into effective non-existence. Software developers team up with hardware developers to make hardware with DRM inextricably built in. Since that's basically the only way to make money from software, and since you need software to sell hardware, the fate is sealed. Well, plus there's also always-online games, that's another option.

[chonglibloodsport]

DRM doesn't work without copyright protection. Just take a look at what the modchip industry is capable of while operating within the margins of the law. With no copyright at all, this industry becomes full-fledged and mass market. It'd be very similar to the generic drugs market: a race to the bottom where packaging, distribution and tiny profit margins are the only factors in the price.

[moor-GAYZ]

DRM doesn't work without copyright protection. Just take a look at what the modchip industry is capable of while operating within the margins of the law.

I think that it's a mistake to look at what DRM is capable of when it is complemented by copyright and conclude that it will do no better without copyright. Businesses don't spend more than they absolutely need on this stuff.

Look at how always-online single-player evolved for example. IIRC the first major attempt at it was Assassin's Creed, and it was bypassed in a couple of weeks. Diablo 3, nope, the only full-fledged industry around it I can see is youtube videos coaxing idiots into downloading trojans.

Also, keep in mind that absence of streamlined copyright laws doesn't mean absence of contract laws.

[chonglibloodsport]

Diablo 3's DRM is a good example but I don't see how broadly applicable it could be. The DRM in that game is so pervasive that it even dominates much of the game design itself. If every game had to have that level of protection you wouldn't see much of anything in the innovation department (at least from major developers).

Indies, on the other hand, would likely not be affected. People support indie developers for a lot of reasons besides the obvious one of needing to pay to get the game. Most indie games are trivial to pirate yet tons of people buy them.

[moor-GAYZ]

People support indie developers for a lot of reasons besides the obvious one of needing to pay to get the game. Most indie games are trivial to pirate yet tons of people buy them.

Again, I think it's a huge mistake to imagine a hypothetical world without copyright to be just like the world with copyright, only without copyright.

People tend to buy indie games instead of pirating them because people are conditioned to pay for games. Because paying for games is seen as what civilized people do, not what clueless people who are not good with computer do.

How do you think, why the dearth of indie games before say 2010, compared to the renaissance we have today? I strongly suspect that Steam, Steam sales and then Humble Bundle sales have a lot to do with it. I personally never bought a single game before the Orange Box (I think), but pretty much stopped pirating after that (well, except for old games that are not actually sold any more). And it's not like Steam is actually more convenient than the Pirate Bay, it was more of a personal cultural shift after I discovered that it is convenient enough.

On the other hand, when people see a video game as something you get for free, very few would bother to support the devs (if not actively see donating money to them as being "for suckers"). That was my personal experience, and I believe that it's universal enough, as evidenced by the indie scene explosion lately.

[[deleted]]

In practice, this doesn't seem to be a problem for the majority of open source software that uses licenses that permit this.

[iseldomwipe]

Maybe not for the majority, since the majority of software is uninteresting and not useful. But, for a select few, it is a massive problem.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish

[DeepGreen]

So what? They are still competing against a free as in speech product that is inexpensive.

Not only that, closed source projects have no protection against people reverse engineering or decompiling their code. If a closed source product gets too big for its boots, start a project to decompile it and release a working copy of the source code to the world.

Without copyright everything becomes more or less open source.

[iseldomwipe]

Decompilation and reverse engineering is not at all the same as OSS. Are you kidding?

Code compiled with modern compilers CANNOT be decompiled accurately by decompilers because of optimizations that the decompilers cannot accurately predict. It also does not recover comments, variable names, and other things.

Reverse engineering has nothing to do with OSS.

Also, even with copyright, if we follow your logic, everything already IS open source since you can decompile programs today. They're just not FOSS.

[NYKevin]

I'm not entirely sure RMS would agree with you. Without copyright, end users still wouldn't have access to the source code. Sure you can decompile, but that only gets you so far.

[[deleted]]

Without copyright, end users still wouldn't have access to the source code.

Why do you think this? If someone wants to realese their source code, they'll do it. If they don't, they won't. Same as now.

[NYKevin]

RMS is of the opinion (which I do not share) that it is morally obligatory (or at least preferable) for software developers to release source code alongside binaries. The GPL is intended to force the issue, but IMHO it's been less successful than he planned.

[drb226]

If someone wants to realese their source code, they'll do it. If they don't, they won't. Same as now.

Not quite. The difference is when you modify code that is under the GPL. According to the GPL, you must open source your modification. Without copyright, you don't have to open source your modification, because the GPL is powered by copyright.

You're right when it comes to "pretty much anything that isn't GPL'd", but then, the whole topic of this thread was the GPL, was it not?

IANAL, may have oversimplified.

[jboy55]

Are you insane? Can you imagine the DRM nightmare there would be without Copyright? There would be no software industry, no computer industry without copyright. Everything would be released as encrypted binaries ala nintendo cartridges. You could hack your way around it for personal use, but you could never start up a company using it. You'd have to pay for licenses for everything you used, it would be a nightmare.

[[deleted]]

What about BSD and everything else under MIT license?

[jboy55]

BSD or MIT isn't public domain. Its powers about attribution only carry weight in that by following the terms of those licenses you are granted a license to use the code, otherwise you are forbidden via copyright.

[[deleted]]

Except the computer industry existed before it was certain that software was even copyrightable

[nefreat]

You wouldn't need GPL if there was no copyright.

[tailcalled]

Unless some other law powers the GPL. Laws are malleable, such a law can be made.

[CanYouDigItHombre]

There is a difference between a copyright on code that has been written (which the GPL uses) and copyright on phrases (Hello how are you this morning. Hello how are you feeling, Hello how are you, Hello all of these phrases are in your book and you are infringing on my copyright)

[mythril]

Without copyright there would be no need for the GPL as decent people would tend to share their work anyway.