When Can Your Competitor Steal or "Borrow" Your Copyright?
If you are in the entertainment business (anything spanning from movies, music to creative content) then your copyright protection just got diluted today. If you are a software engineer looking to “borrow” a few million lines from Java SE (owned by Oracle thank you) to help make your software program more interoperable, then you are in luck. In a closely watched case spanning a decade, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Google could borrow or in the Court’s words “reimplement” about 11 million code lines from Java SE in Google’s Android that is used by billions around the world for free even though Oracle as the lawful owner of Java SE tried to negotiate a licensing agreement with Google.
The Court did not answer the broader question of whether APIs are copyrightable. Instead the Court argued that Google borrowed the codes within the concept of “fair use”.
Oracle was obviously not pleased with the result of having the lower court’s opinion overturned. In a statement, Oracle stated: “[t]he Google platform just got bigger and market power greater. The barriers to entry higher and the ability to compete lower…They stole Java and spent a decade litigating as only a monopolist can. This behavior is exactly why regulatory authorities around the world and in the United States are examining Google’s business practices.”
Google on the other was elated saying that the ruling “is a victory for consumers, interoperability, and computer science. The decision gives legal certainty to the next generation of developers whose new products and services will benefit consumers.”
You be the judge…