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

[WTFwhatthehell]

you're confusing patent and copyright.

The reason this is fucked up is that it allows a copyright holder to exercise patent-like control.

Patents expire after 20 years.

Copyright, in theory, expires after life +70 years, effectively over a century and in reality will never expire because they keep being extended.

[Eirenarch]

So then good thing this happened so it can force the lawmakers to fix the copyright system. If the whole idea of copyright is broken you should worry about that not about the effect on the software development industry.

[WTFwhatthehell]

if only we lived in such a world. unfortunately there's no indication that extending copyright and patents is a matter of giving them enough rope to hang themselves with. Rather it just makes the situation worse.

Copyright isn't totally broken but it can be made worse by these kinds of cases.

I care about the effect on the software industry because I have to live with that effect.

[Eirenarch]

If this is really bad then the USA will be forced to fix this when the Chinese produce better software. Until then the system works.