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On Wednesday, eight Supreme Court judges appeared suspicious of Google’s argument that the Application Programming Interface (API) is not protected by copyright copyright law. The high court was hearing oral arguments by Google in a decade-long legal battle with Oracle. Oracle argues that Google violated its copyright in the Java programming language when it re-implemented the Java API for use by Android app developers.
The stakes are high for Google, which could cost Oracle billions of dollars. More importantly, Oracle Win can change the way API behaves, giving it the power to lock competitors who want to create compelling software.
Decades before Oracle’s claims, most people in the software industry believed that APIs could not be copyrighted. This means that a competing company can re-implement a competitor’s API to enable software designed to work with its competitor’s product to work with its own.
Oracle’s victory will answer that question. Not only will it create additional work for copyright lawyers, it could lead to a world where software compatibility issues arise more often in everyday life. It can also directly affect the livelihoods of computer programmers, forcing them to learn new programming languages or other software software tools while switching jobs.
It is always dangerous to get out of the verbal arguments of the Supreme Court. Sometimes judges ask one party tough questions, but they rule that way. Yet, after hearing Wednesday’s arguments, I had a hard time imagining a five-fair majority accepting Google’s argument that APIs can’t be copyrighted. If Google wins, it is likely that more APIs will open the door to copyright piracy lawsuits in the future. To be honest, there seems to be a good chance that Oracle will win.
Google’s lawyer “did something disgusting”
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In the mid-2000s, Google knew it would need a lot of developers to build apps for its upcoming Android platform. To speed up the process, Google redesigned the Java programming language from scratch instead of developing a new programming language. Google wrote a new code to implement Java programs based on specific features of Sun’s official Java software (Oracle later acquired Sun). This allowed thousands of Java programmers to become Android developers without having to learn a new language.
In order to re-implement Java, Google needs to make a copy of the name and argument of functions like Java.long.math.max. Otherwise a Java program that uses these functions will not work on Google’s operating system. Section 102 (b) of the Copyright Act states that no one can copyright an “idea, process, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle or invention”. Google has concluded that functions such as Math.max are “methods of operation” because programmers “manage” them using the Java platform. As such, Google did not purchase the license from Sun, which led to a lawsuit a few years later.
This is a widespread practice in the software industry. Oracle, for example, re-implemented Amazon’s S3 API so that customers who created software for Amazon’s cloud platform could easily switch to Oracle’s rival cloud platform.
Oracle’s strategy during the 10-year legal battle is something special about the API that must be denied. In Oracle’s view, an API specification – essentially just a list of function names and argument types – is a computer code that can be copyrighted like any other code. Oracle claims that if the court strips down the API specifications of copyright protection, lawyers can use the same arguments to undermine copyright protection for any computer program.
Judge Samuel Elito raised the issue in his first question to Google’s lawyer Goldmus Goldstein.
“I’m concerned that under your argument, all computer codes risk losing protection under 102 (b),” Elito said. “How do you square your position with the clear intention of Congress to provide security for computer codes?”
Of course Goldstein’s most important task here – and the whole argument on Wednesday – was to reassure the judges that there is a significant difference between the API and other codes and that this difference has legal effect.
“He did an indecent job,” Cornell University legal scholar James Grimmmellen told Arsen in a phone interview Wednesday. “At the level of nuisance he was ready to enter, his case was lost. The only way to stick to it is to pay attention to what it means to disclose the code.”
