> At the risk of getting slightly off-topic here, here's a comment on > Hacker News from a well-respected commenter on legal issues - he's a > lawyer specialising in startup and technology law and his analysis is > uniformly excellent. He argues that while the result may be > unpalatable, it's by no means the stitch-up by technological > ignoramuses that that article makes it sound: > https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7722674
Judge Alsop conflated two distinct and non-overlapping areas of intellectual property law by claiming that a copyrightable work (the API) must "rise to the level of warranting patent protection". While that's a novel idea, it is nowhere in the copyright law. (Oracle, by the way, also holds patents on Java). Where the new decision might have a direct impact on Clojure would be if someone were to create a stand-alone Clojure (or other products that enable a developer to use Java directly in their products) that was compatible with the JVM-hosted version. There would seem to be a need for API-compatible functions. Doubly so if you could excute jar files. The court could find that "infringing", it seems. On April 29th, Steven Vaughan-Nichols (a lawyer) predicted that Oracle would be defeated in court [0]... and he was wrong. Text is "born with copyright" and the API is a text specification. The EFF lawyer [1] who provided a friend-of-the-court brief seems very unhappy with the decision. Florian Mueller [2] at fosspatents.com has a much more in-depth analysis and basically agrees with the decision. He includes detailed quotes from the Court. Google claims that Sun issued Java under the GPL2. But Oracle has the freedom to change a license on its products and has made Java API changes since the Sun Java purchase. They did the same thing with MySQL, also GPL2, which is now "pay-to-play". Our trouble with the Courts, and possibly with the lawyer's reasoning, is that they are not programmers. The other problem is that they are deciding the case on what the law SAYS, not on the effects. But the judge ruled that (a) Oracle could copyright the API (b) Google infringed that copyright Google's defense rests on "fair use" [3] quoted below. I have learned that "legalese" is NOT English so words don't mean what you think they mean. "Legalese" is also not logical but depends on prior cases. With those caveats, I don't see that Google has any chance to prevail. Oracle can certainly claim that the listed exceptions don't apply and that the 4 listed criteria all weigh in on their side. As we all know, a widely used API has "network effects"... you use it because everybody uses it. That's essentially why Google chose it rather than create their own. They can leverage the huge number of programmers who already use it. It would be a challenge to convince designers creating an API to create a "competing, non-infringing version". Of course, Oracle claims that their API is very valuable intellectual property, vital to their business, and copyrighted. I personally hate the Court's decision but I also think they read the law as it was intended. Oracle is not SCO; they won't go away any time soon. So what would a non-JVM Clojure do? A non-profit JVM-compatible Clojure product would potentially escape using clause (1) below [3], assuming it was used for "non-profit educational purposes". Can a non-Java Clojure be defined? Tim Daly ========================================================================= [0] http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/oracle-vs-google-dead-lawsuit-walking/10843 [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/05/dangerous-ruling-oracle-v-google-federal-circuit-reverses-sensible-lower-court [2] http://www.fosspatents.com/2014/05/oracle-wins-android-java-copyright.html [3] Copyright Law Exceptions (quoted for "comment" purposes) :-) "Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords, or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include: 1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for non-profit educational purposes; 2. the nature of the copyrighted work; 3. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and 4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work." -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
