I also appreciate this fair use argument, especially when you point out the code in question was 0.4% of the entire API.
Still, I'll always struggle with the idea that "the amount and substantiality of the portion used" when copying an interface is comparable to copying an implementation. The interface is, intellectually, the substantially heavier, "bigger picture" component of the API than the implementation. In my view they are apples and oranges.
So, I'm glad this was the outcome. But I'll always feel like there was something wrong with Googe taking the Java SE interfaces and using them like they did, gratis.
Ironically the most protected APIs may be the ones nobody implements.
Anyone using fork(), stat(), open(), or other basic parts of the UNIX development environment would be in violation.
Those copyrights were purchased by Novell at some point, and I believe ended up with Attachmate.
One would think that the C Programming Language is also covered by copyright via the K&R books, which would put anyone using printf() in the same position.
That is truly a nightmare scenario.
Absolutely, but courts are supposed to interpret the law, not rule whichever way avoids nightmare scenarios.
The risk of going too far in that direction (and this is by no means the first case in which SCOTUS c̶l̶e̶a̶r̶l̶y̶ may have rationalized a decision for pragmatic reasons) is that it makes the court more corruptible. I am glad the majority ruled this way, because I agree that it leads to a better outcome in this case. On the other hand, any departure from a pure interpretation of the law is very dangerous, because it normalizes the more-corruptible mode of operation, and that can lead to another kind of "nightmare scenario".
That would seem a reasonable outcome, for much the same reason that copyright not protecting the appearance of fonts under US law is reasonable. Yes, it is overriding copyright protection for a creative work that would otherwise apply. However, it does so because a greater good is served, in this case by ensuring that interoperability cannot be encumbered, something which (as the majority opinion alludes) goes against the very purpose of copyright under US law.
One could argue that this is for the judicial branch, not the legislative branch, to decide.
Now, how do you let third parties program against that non-public API? Would only showing it to licensees be a legal way to do that?
If so, and if the API becomes popular, I don’t see how to prevent those licensees from leaking the API to the world, say through small code snippets on Stack Overflow.
One thing I do see happening is that sensitive and expensive to develop algorithm internals may be prevented from leaking into APIs. I, again, don’t see this as anything other than a win for devs. An API is fundamentally used to get stuff done, if a developer doesn’t need to know the implementation details I overall think this is a win for the developer using the API.
Rewriting history the way we do in the context has all kinds of problems associated with it
Fair use makes sense to me when you're talking about the table of contents of a book. If I take the table of contents of a famous novel and write my own chapters, it makes sense to me that the owners of that book shouldn't be able to sue me. No one is going to read my book instead of Faulkner's. There's no equivalency there.
If I take an API (the table of contents equivalent of software), that's seems totally different, if not the opposite really: the interface is what matters, and the implementation is secondary. If you apply the analogy to a novel, it's as if I took the table of contents of a famous novel, write my own chapters, and it'll be equivalent to the famous novel. My chapters could be slightly "worse", but readers wouldn't necessarily notice a difference between my version or Faulkner's.
But that's kind-of the point IMO - if we take a free-market approach to this, copying (or sort of "standardizing" onto) an API allows for more innovation, since it's not a prohibitive up-front cost to switching the implementation. We don't copyright (or I guess patent, and I know they're different) the user interface of a fridge. Any fridge can have 2 doors and a slide-out freezer, but it's the actual implementation that would matter to a user - how energy-efficient it is, how cold it can get, extra conveniences (maybe akin to API extensions) like a water/ice dispenser that still can be "copied"/used by other fridges. And I'm sure that maybe those "interfaces" were patented originally, but it seems absurd now that they're so commonplace to restrict who can implement them.
I think the same applies for APIs. It's only taking away users from the original implementation if the new one is better.
This is NOT what the Court found. At the very top of the Opinion, it says "we assume, for argument’s sake, that the material was copyrightable. But we hold that the copying here at issue nonetheless constituted a fair use."
Honestly, the fact that it's 0.4% is a BS heuristic. What if they spent a year and all they did was refactor the code so that codebase was 1.43 million lines instead of 2.86? Would that mean these lines of code are 2x as powerful?
Lines of code is an indicative heuristic, but not a deterministic one.
...at least I hope that's what they did.
