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| Authored by: DieterWasDriving on Monday, April 23 2012 @ 08:01 PM EDT |
To this point APIs have been considered to not be covered by copyright.
Saying that they are covered by fair use is a disaster for the productive
technical world.
Right now you can't reasonably be sued for using an API. If using an API is
actually "fair use", you can be sued. Once in court you have to prove
that what you did is OK, which is asymmetrically difficult and expensive. Even
if such cases are won 99% of the time, it's likely to start at hundreds of
thousands and a year to be cleared.
This judge seems to be considering expanding what copyright covers by judicial
rather than legislative means. If the reporting is accurate, he is already
saying that the copyright covers SSO, even if he hasn't yet decided on the API
issue. That's a dramatic statement.
Imagine writing a history book. The natural way to break the text into chapters
is by era. Very likely they would be defined by wars, or when influential
leaders were in power. But if SSO is part of a book copyright, in the future
you will have to research if any other history book uses the same structure and
sequence. Even if you didn't use that book as a reference, it may have
influenced a source that you did read.
Only months ago I would have said that it's very unlikely that a judge would
declare that copyright protection extends to API. Now I'm wondering if the
absurd will happen.
Google isn't likely to object. The situation gives them several bites at the
apple. The jury could decide that they didn't violate the copyright. the jury
could decide that what they did was fair use. Or the judge could [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: bugstomper on Monday, April 23 2012 @ 10:29 PM EDT |
Judge Alsup did not say that he has made up his mind that SSO of API is
copyrightable. He said that he would first have the jury decide whether in this
case it would be fair use even if it is copyrightable, in which case the
question of copyrightability is moot, and only decide the thornier issue if he
has to.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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