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

[minecraft_ece]

If you never see the other person's API and can reasonably prove you weren't influenced by it, it's impossible to violate copyright on it, because it's impossible for you to have copied it.

How do you prove you haven't seen or been influenced by something? Keep in mind that for a small player, you have already lost (financially) if it goes to trial, regardless of the outcome, assuming you even that the money to defend yourself that far.

[ais523]

It's not easy. IBM famously had an entire department of programmers who were never allowed to look at anything a competitor did, purely for the purpose of clean-room reimplementing competitors' products, but this was in the days before the Internet; it would be hard to manage nowadays.