This is a fantastic ruling. It is extremely clear and seems to cover all the
bases. That's why I'm hoping it goes all the way to the Supreme Court. We
really need coherent API copyright law in the US. Right now the situation is a
mess (perhaps because everyone assumed APIs could not be copyrighted). Judge
Alsup put tremendous work and effort into cleaning up that mess. In addition,
both sides have means and motive to take this all the way to the Supreme Court.
You are right that Judge Alsup's ruling may be overturned but I don't
think that's likely. If he had just made a one or two page ruling in Google's
favor when they asked for a summary judgment (which I wanted him to do), then
there would have been a lot of room for a higher court to overturn him. This
ruling is spectacular. If the Supreme Court overturns it then there was no hope
for APIs to be free from copyright protection in the US. Unless Judge Alsup
made a huge mistake somewhere it seems to me it would be quite a scandal for the
Supreme Court to overturn this ruling.
--- 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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