<story><title>Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]</title><url>https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/18-956_d18f.pdf</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>btilly</author><text>&lt;i&gt;While the result is a big relief, I think it&amp;#x27;s not as decisive as I&amp;#x27;m noticing some headlines (and commenters) are claiming.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;It is even less decisive than you&amp;#x27;re saying.&lt;p&gt;The fact that the Supreme Court decided not to overturn the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that APIs are copyrightable means that binding precedent on every court except the Supreme is that they are.  And for fair use, one of the statutory factors is the &amp;quot;effect&amp;quot; of the copying on the &amp;quot;market for or value of the copyrighted
work.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;That said, this case does establish a precedent that if your copying of an API is primarily for purposes of matching an interface so that developers can reimplement it, you&amp;#x27;re in fair use territory:&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;The fact that one statutory factor points one way doesn&amp;#x27;t stop another from pointing the other.  And part of their decision is the conclusion that Google&amp;#x27;s copying increased the value of Java.  That will generally not be true when APIs get copied.&lt;p&gt;In particular if I am trying to create a product that competes with yours, and I copy your API for the purpose of interoperability, I&amp;#x27;m going to have an uphill battle claiming fair use.  Because my product directly reduces the market for your product.&lt;p&gt;To name some historically important examples, Microsoft copied the APIs for JavaScript from Netscape, Microsoft copied APIs from Lotus 1-2-3 for Excel, and Wine copied APIs from Windows for Linux.  The outcomes famously were that Netscape went out of business, Lotus 1-2-3 was discontinued, and Linux became somewhat more viable.</text></item><item><author>jxf</author><text>While the result is a big relief, I think it&amp;#x27;s not as decisive as I&amp;#x27;m noticing some headlines (and commenters) are claiming.&lt;p&gt;One of the big open questions is &amp;quot;are APIs copyrightable?&amp;quot; The court skirted that question, and instead focused on whether it was fair use:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; To decide no more than is necessary to resolve this case, the Court assumes for argument’s sake that the copied lines can be copyrighted, and focuses on whether Google’s use of those lines was a “fair use.”&lt;p&gt;That said, this case does establish a precedent that if your copying of an API is primarily for purposes of matching an interface so that developers can reimplement it, you&amp;#x27;re in fair use territory:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Google copied these lines not because of their creativity or beauty but because they would allow programmers to bring their skills to a new smartphone computing environment.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ll count that as a win, on balance.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dragonwriter</author><text>&amp;gt; The fact that the Supreme Court decided not to overturn the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that APIs are copyrightable means that binding precedent on every court except the Supreme is that they are&lt;p&gt;No, it doesn’t. Because the Court expressly declined to examine the question, the CAFC decision is binding only where it would have been without the Supreme Court decision, i.e., those courts bound by the CAFC’s interpration of how Ninth Circuit law applies. As it turns out, that is exactly zero courts.&lt;p&gt;The &lt;i&gt;reason&lt;/i&gt; the Supreme Court often likes to find the narrowest grounds possible for a decision is to &lt;i&gt;avoid&lt;/i&gt; making more binding case law than is called for; giving the lower court rulings on all questions not addressed (including those the Supreme Court explicitly avoids) the same binding effect as the actual Supreme Court holding would defeat the purpose, and it is very much not how things work.</text></comment>
<story><title>Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]</title><url>https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/18-956_d18f.pdf</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>btilly</author><text>&lt;i&gt;While the result is a big relief, I think it&amp;#x27;s not as decisive as I&amp;#x27;m noticing some headlines (and commenters) are claiming.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;It is even less decisive than you&amp;#x27;re saying.&lt;p&gt;The fact that the Supreme Court decided not to overturn the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that APIs are copyrightable means that binding precedent on every court except the Supreme is that they are.  And for fair use, one of the statutory factors is the &amp;quot;effect&amp;quot; of the copying on the &amp;quot;market for or value of the copyrighted
work.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;That said, this case does establish a precedent that if your copying of an API is primarily for purposes of matching an interface so that developers can reimplement it, you&amp;#x27;re in fair use territory:&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;The fact that one statutory factor points one way doesn&amp;#x27;t stop another from pointing the other.  And part of their decision is the conclusion that Google&amp;#x27;s copying increased the value of Java.  That will generally not be true when APIs get copied.&lt;p&gt;In particular if I am trying to create a product that competes with yours, and I copy your API for the purpose of interoperability, I&amp;#x27;m going to have an uphill battle claiming fair use.  Because my product directly reduces the market for your product.&lt;p&gt;To name some historically important examples, Microsoft copied the APIs for JavaScript from Netscape, Microsoft copied APIs from Lotus 1-2-3 for Excel, and Wine copied APIs from Windows for Linux.  The outcomes famously were that Netscape went out of business, Lotus 1-2-3 was discontinued, and Linux became somewhat more viable.</text></item><item><author>jxf</author><text>While the result is a big relief, I think it&amp;#x27;s not as decisive as I&amp;#x27;m noticing some headlines (and commenters) are claiming.&lt;p&gt;One of the big open questions is &amp;quot;are APIs copyrightable?&amp;quot; The court skirted that question, and instead focused on whether it was fair use:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; To decide no more than is necessary to resolve this case, the Court assumes for argument’s sake that the copied lines can be copyrighted, and focuses on whether Google’s use of those lines was a “fair use.”&lt;p&gt;That said, this case does establish a precedent that if your copying of an API is primarily for purposes of matching an interface so that developers can reimplement it, you&amp;#x27;re in fair use territory:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Google copied these lines not because of their creativity or beauty but because they would allow programmers to bring their skills to a new smartphone computing environment.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ll count that as a win, on balance.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>curt15</author><text>&amp;gt;The fact that the Supreme Court decided not to overturn the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that APIs are copyrightable means that binding precedent on every court except the Supreme is that they are.&lt;p&gt;Federal Circuit&amp;#x27;s ruling would only be precedent in the 9th circuit. As it does not have original jurisdiction in copyright disputes (only patent cases), it doesn&amp;#x27;t supercede any copyrightability rulings in other circuits, for instance the 1st circuit&amp;#x27;s holding in Lotus v Borland that the Lotus macros were not copyrightable as a &amp;quot;method of operation&amp;quot;. And today&amp;#x27;s opinion cites Lotus v Borland several times even though the original 1996 Supreme Court case was deadlocked at 4-4.</text></comment>