Because the tech industry is celebrating the victory against Oracle over copyright with Google
Google got the better of its 10-year dispute with Oracle. The US Supreme Court has ruled that the Mountain View giant has not infringed on Oracle's proprietary Java code for its Android operating system.
Victory for Google against Oracle on copyright.
On Monday, the US Supreme Court ruled that the use of Oracle software code to build the Android operating system that runs most of the smartphone world does not violate federal copyright law.
The decision ends a 10-year legal battle. Not only that, Oracle was asking for $ 9 billion in damages for the illegal use of some of its software interfaces.
In addition to resolving a multibillion-dollar dispute between the tech titans, the ruling helps establish a long-standing practice in software development. Indeed, the Court refused to intervene on the broader question of whether bees are protected by copyright.
Google and many Silicon Valley operators have argued that extending copyright protection to APIs would threaten innovation in the digital world.
Both Microsoft and IBM were among the industry heavyweights who filed for Google in the case. A ruling against Google could have had profound consequences, stifling innovation and disrupting software development.
All the details.
THE DECISION OF THE SUPREME COURT
For the American Supreme Court, Google "did not violate the copyright law" by copying some of the Java API.
The judges – with six votes in favor and two against, those of conservatives Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito – thus overturned the ruling of a lower court according to which Google's inclusion of the Oracle software code in Android did not constitute fair use to under the copyright law of the United States.
For the Supreme Court, Google has in fact used "only those codes necessary for programmers" to allow them to work on a new program.
THE (UNRESOLVED) INTERFACE COPYRIGHT ISSUE
The judges therefore did not go into the specifics of the copyright of the interfaces considering that "it was not necessary to solve the case" and leaving a key issue for the software industry unresolved.
Indeed, many developers believe that the Oracle v Google case clearly shows the need for greater clarity on the legal status of interfaces. The latter are widely copied within the industry.
PUT A POINT TO A TEN-YEAR BATTLE
The two California-based tech giants have been fighting ever since Oracle sued Google for copyright infringement in 2010 in the San Francisco federal court.
Google filed an appeal against a 2018 U.S. Court of Appeals ruling for the Washington Federal Circuit.
Since 2010, Oracle owns the rights to Java after the purchase of Sun Microsystems, which had supported Google's use of Java for Android.
THE SATISFACTION OF BIG G
The Mountain View giant welcomes the Supreme Court's decision. Google sees it as a "win for consumers and interoperability". The ruling offers "legal certainty to the next generation of developers whose new products and services will benefit consumers."
THAT SAVES OVER 8 BILLION DOLLARS
But the ruling also spares Google from potentially large damages. In its complaint, Oracle had asked for damages of $ 9 billion.
BORBOTTA ORACLE …
Critical is the reaction of Oracle, which accused Google of illegally copying 11,000 lines of Java API code to develop Android, the operating system that powers more than two billion mobile devices in the world.
“Google has gotten bigger and more powerful. They stole Java and spent a decade fighting like only a monopolist can. This behavior shows why regulators in the US and around the world are looking into Google's business practices, ”commented Oracle.
Words that are echoed by various observers, according to which the case raises the issue of the balance of power between large platforms and their rivals in the software industry.
CELEBRATE THE DEVELOPERS
Instead, much of the US tech industry has been deployed with Google. Just a year ago Mozilla, Medium, Cloudera, Reddit, IBM, Microsoft and other tech companies had offered support to the Mountain View giant in its legal battle.
The founder of the Privacy Lab at Yale Law School, Sean O'Brien, told AP that both amateur and professional software developers will now "sleep a little easier without worrying that innovation and collaboration would be handcuffed by new restrictions ".
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/perche-lindustria-tech-festeggia-con-google-la-vittoria-contro-oracle-sul-copyright/ on Tue, 06 Apr 2021 10:28:15 +0000.