| Technically I agree with you that the job of the judge is to interpret the law,
not the potential impact on the US economy.
But ... one of the reasons for
the big mess we have now is a big lie Oracle told the court. The said that even
thought APIs could not be copyrighted in 1996 (citing Lotus v. Borland)
they said the legal landscape had changed since then and APIs were now protected
by copyright. The fact that there is widespread industry hand wringing over a
possible Oracle win on APIs and not a peep of hand wringing over a possible
Google win is a vivid demonstration of what a big lie that was.
This big
lie is quite significant in a number of ways. The only reason there is no
recent precedent on APIs in the 9th district (which includes Silicon Valley) is
because there were no API copyright lawsuits since there was universal agreement
that APIs could not be copyrighted. The judge also threw out testimony from
Sun's then-CTO Eric Schmidt from around 1996 saying that APIs are not protected
by copyright. The judge said that policies of Sun may have changed since then.
I think that would be reasonable for actual policy statements but it is not
reasonable for an assessment of the legal climate unless there was
evidence the legal climate has changed since then. Yet,
there is not one shred
of evidence the legal climate has changed and there is a vast amount of
evidence that it has not. If the change Oracle said had already occurred would
happen now it would cause drastic changes to the industry.
I agree that
judges should generally be looking to the law and not industry reaction but when
the only reason the case went to trial is a false claim about the current usage
and expectations of the industry then the current usage and expectations of the
industry are vital to the case. IOW, for justice to be served in accordance
with the law then the judge needs to do one of two things:
- Allow the
precedents and assessments from circa 1996 be part of this case establishing the
industry-wide precedent while also letting Oracle present evidence that this
industry-wide precedent had changed, or
- Let the current industry-wide
expectations and usage become part of the case.
The way it is now, Oracle
gets a free ride to disregard all legal precedents and all
accepted industry-wide practices. This is no small thing because in order to
win they need to turn the entire software industry topsy-turvy. IMO, the API
complaints would not have gone to trial if Oracle hadn't grossly misrepresented
current industry practices. Therefore the current industry practices are
extremely relevant.
---
Our job is to remind ourselves that there are
more contexts
than the one we’re in now — the one that we think is reality.
-- Alan Kay [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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