Jury rules Google violated copyright law, Google moves for mistrial

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/05/jury-rules-google-violated-copyright-law-google-moves-for-mistrial.ars

by suprgeek • 14 years ago

286 124 14 years ago

Well, yes and no. The jury ruled that Google violated copyright if and only if APIs are copyrightable. They have not ruled whether or not Google had fair use (which is kind of fuzzy to me--how do you violate the law when you have fair use, or could potentially have fair use?).

The judge has to determine if APIs can be copyrightable now. If the jury had ruled that Google wasn't guilty of copyright infringement of the API, then the judge wouldn't have to make that decision.

rgoddard2• 14 years ago

Fair use is a defense against copyright violations. If you are deemed not to have a copyright violation to begin with, you do not need to use fair use as a defense.

morsch• 14 years ago

If your usage is covered by fair use, it doesn't require the approval of the rights holder and can't constitute a copyright violation.

But this is arguing semantics, the problematic word being copyright violation. It goes against my intuition (and I suspect I'm not alone) to say that a violation of copyright has taken place when a usage is legal within the rules instituted by copyright.

I suppose people who associate a different set of semantics with copyright violation would have to talk about legal copyright violation versus illegal copyright violation. To me, the former is contradicting and the latter is a tautology.

baddox3• 14 years ago

That seems to be mostly a semantic argument, and I think your proposed usage is not a very common one. Fair use covers things like journalistic coverage of copyrighted works, use of copyrighted works in education, and criticism (e.g. literary criticism). I don't consider those things infringements on copyright. Rather, I consider fair use to be a limitation on copyright. As far as I know, that's also how US law treats fair use.

stonemetal• 14 years ago

It is poorly stated in the write up. Fair use is what they call an Affirmative defense, you have to have done it before you can claim fair use as a mitigating circumstance to avoid punishment. It is kind of like using self defense as a reason to beat a murder charge. You have to claim to have killed the person before you can claim to have done it in self defense.

yummysalad8• 14 years ago

EDIT: why am I being down voted?

Oracle has a pretty strong case against Google.

To address the issue of fair use and if APIs can be copyrightable:

1. Judge Alsup told Google's counsel that Google had to address the Johnson Controls decision with a view to the Java APIs.

On October 3, 1989, the Ninth Circuit held the following in Johnson Controls v. Phoenix Control Systems:

"A computer program is made up of several different components, including the source and object code, the structure, sequence and/or organization of the program, the user interface, and the function, or purpose, of the program. Whether a particular component of a program is protected by a copyright depends on whether it qualifies as an 'expression' of an idea, rather than the idea itself."

On to paragraph 13:

"Here, the district court found that the structure, sequence and organization of the JC-5000S was expression, and thus subject to protection. [...] This issue will no doubt be revisited at trial, but at this stage of the proceedings we cannot say that the district court clearly erred."

http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/886/...

http://www.fosspatents.com/2012/05/oracle-v-google-cant-make...

2. 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: the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use

parfe2• 14 years ago

Funny Mueller conveniently excises the text that does not support the case of, his employer, Oracle.

13. Here, the district court found that the structure, sequence and organization of the JC-5000S was expression, and thus subject to protection. The JC-5000S is a very sophisticated program, and each individual application is customized to the needs of the purchaser. This practice of adaptation is one indication that there may be room for individualized expression in the accomplishment of common functions. The district court's finding of expression is also supported by the special master's report. Regarding one particular point type, the master indicated that, although it is common for process control software packages to include provisions for collecting historical data, and using various integration and averaging schemes to do so, it is unusual to implement this function as a point type, as Johnson did. This finding also supports the view that some discretion and opportunity for creativity exist in the structure, and that the structure of the JC-5000S is expression, rather than an idea in itself. This issue will no doubt be revisited at trial, but at this stage of the proceedings we cannot say that the district court clearly erred.

Copying APIs leaves no room for individualized expression.

Don't be surprised Mueller misled you. You should expect it from him.

mstachowiak• 14 years ago

The judge still has to decide if the APIs have copyright protection. Bad initial result for Google/Android, but more important rulings to come

fpgeek• 14 years ago

I'm not so sure it is a bad initial result. It looks more neutral to me.

Given the judge's instructions on SSO copyright and APIs and the realities of re-implementing an API, I don't see how a jury could have reasonably concluded there was no potentially infringing copying. If so, the real question in play was the fair use analysis and that's where the jury deadlocked. Not as good as Google would have liked, but not as bad as it could have been, either.

rcthompson• 14 years ago

I think you're right. If you assume that APIs are subject to copyright, then seems clear that implementing a new system that copies only the API of another existing system would be a violation of the copyright on the API. But it seems the judge still has to decide whether APIs are in fact copyrightable, and if he decides that they are not, then I suppose this verdict would be irrelevant.

rgoddard2• 14 years ago

If (API Copyrightable) = False THEN Google Not Guilty

If (Google Violated Copyright) = False THEN Google Not Guilty

If Google has Fair Use THEN Google Not Guilty

Google Guilty

The judge needs to rule on the first statement, the jury came back on the second statement, but the jury could not decide on the third statement.

(Edit: Wording)

georgemcbay4• 14 years ago

GoogleGuilty = APICopyrightable && GoogleViolatedCopyright && !GoogleHasFairUse

optimized (and corrected, because in your flow Google is always guilty since everything drops through to that anyway).

freehunter• 14 years ago

Not if Google Not Guilty is equal to an exit statement :)

ricree• 14 years ago

Strictly speaking, wouldn't it be GoogleGuilty = GoogleViolatedCopyright && !GoogleHasFairUse && ApiCopyrightable

In the sense that false short-circuits anything to the right, and ApiCopyrightable is only a factor if Google is held to have violated copyright under the assumption that Apis can be copyrighted.

libria2• 14 years ago

Oddly, I find your one-liner more readable than the parent's. Probably because I don't know when to follow the English grammar or the pseudocode grammar.

MatthewPhillips• 14 years ago

Missing semicolons.

pyrotechnick• 14 years ago

Ported to CoffeeScript:

GoogleGuilty = APICopyrightable and GoogleViolatedCopyright and not GoogleHasFairUse

vibrunazo• 14 years ago

I wish someone would always translate groklaw's cryptic articles to something understandable like that. :-)

rayiner9• 14 years ago

This is actually a very helpful analogy--I'm stealing it. :)

The law tends to be framed in conditions like this. That's why "the jury found X" isn't necessarily news--the real story could be in other parts of the conditional expression.

josefonseca4• 14 years ago

If the jury rules that Google violated copyright law, does it imply that there was an accepted copyright on the API? Anyone who understands law know what this ruling indicates as far as the bigger issue of API Copyright is concerned?

rsbrown2• 14 years ago

"does it imply...?"

No. The judge has yet to decide this (much more important) issue.

More info here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3940322

josefonseca4• 14 years ago

The reason I ask is this(copied from my same question on reddit):

I see but does the fact that the judge told them to assume so indicate something about what he thinks about it?

I'm not a lawyer and I wonder how it goes in these cases: when a judge tells the jury to assume something, is he implying there is a good chance that that is how he would judge the case?

I had a lawsuit many years ago against a bank here in my hometown. The judge initially ruled he "believed the evidence I presented was consistent with my arguments". In the end, years later, that is how he judged it finally. Therefore I wonder if API's are all now on the brink because of this ruling.

rsbrown2• 14 years ago

This headline and the terse article behind it leave it out enormously important aspects of today's events.

Mush more nuanced analysis here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3940322

bhousel3• 14 years ago

I can't believe cases like this are actually decided by a jury trial. There's no way 12 random people shown a video about the patent system can be expected to rule fairly on matters of nerd esoterica.

Or is this opening round just legal theater, and the real decisions will be handed down by experts in the US Federal Circuit court after an inevitable succession of appeals?

spobo• 14 years ago

I completely agree. If this is true then it's fascinating how incorrect and inefficient the justice system works.

Retric• 14 years ago

It's just about meaningless until after the appeals.

stdgy• 14 years ago

The Jury isn't actually deciding all that much here, especially considering their non-answer to the Fair Use question. The Judge gave them generous instructions, including the stipulation that APIs are covered by copyright, in order to try and limit the potential for a mistrial. He still has to make the ruling on whether APIs(Or some definition of an APIs SSO...) are indeed covered by copyright, which is the crux of the case.

It doesn't sound like he'll be making that ruling until at least midway through this month.

Edit: I'm not sure mistrial is precisely what I mean. Maybe just re-trial? Any clarification would be appreciated.

guan• 14 years ago

I tend to agree with you about jury trials, but having the “real” decisions made by specialist judges in the Federal Circuit has dangers too. Many legal scholars believe that the trend toward allowing more software and business method patents in the 1980s and 1990s occurred because of Federal Circuit judges who were too embedded in the patent bar, and that it was allowed to continue without enough review because with all patent appeals coming out of one circuit, there were no circuit splits (disagreements between circuit courts of appeal), which is the usual way cases reach the US Supreme Court.

In any case it would be difficult for the trial judge or the Federal Circuit to ignore jury decisions on factual questions like the ones that were decided here, unless the result was egregiously wrong. Legal questions like whether APIs are copyrightable will almost certainly be reviewed on appeal.

[added] The dangers of judges who are too specialized was actually recognized when the Federal Circuit was set up, so the court was also given jurisdiction over a few other areas, such as appeals from the Court of Federal Claims, to prevent it from being overly specialized. I haven’t seen recent figures, but I do believe that the docket is dominated by patent cases.

Jach• 14 years ago

I think the legal scholars have excellent reasons to believe what they believe. Here's one: http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2012/03/20/supreme-court-mayo-v-pr...

rayiner9• 14 years ago

It's not just that Federal Circuit judges are embedded in the patent bar, but also that judges are quite intellectual and academic and it is in vogue among academic circles to treat intellectual property like real property. Real property has a very strong right of exclusion (you can't be on my land no matter what you're doing on it, whether it hurts me or not or benefits society or not).

gcb3• 14 years ago

If some law/issue can't be understood by 12 random people and multi-million dollar legal teams... i don't want to live in this world anymore

Nitramp• 14 years ago

> If some law/issue can't be understood by 12 random people and multi-million dollar legal teams [...]

Let me rephrase that.

> If some issue cannot be understood by 12 random people heavily influenced by two multi-million dollar legal teams [...]

And now imagine "issue" being anything you're not intimately familiar with. There are many things in this world that I fail to understand, and probably never will. Law on this level is just as complicated as any other advanced topic, and the effect of a judgement on society can be profound.

I totally don't get the whole jury thing in cases as technical/complex as this (and by that I don't mean the computer science aspect, but the law aspect).

fusiongyro2• 14 years ago

(edited)

I think the jury did just fine. They have punted on the hard problem, but I think the rest of their determinations are quite fair. This doesn't look like the case that will impeach the jury system to me.

bhousel3• 14 years ago

from TFA:

"After the partial copyright verdict was read, Judge Alsup launched right into the patent phase without even giving a break. Right now, the jury is watching a video about patents and patent lawsuits produced by the Federal Judicial Center, which is commonly shown to patent juries. Court will probably adjourn after opening statements today, and witnesses will begin testifying tomorrow, possibly including a repeat show by Jonathan Schwartz, the ex-Sun CEO. The patent phase is expected to be concluded in as little as one week. "

carbocation• 14 years ago

Imagine the same statement being made about medical malpractice.

At the end of the day, I'm OK with "random" juries making these decisions. There is quite a bit of apparatus in place to prevent major error, and the law can always be changed (obviously it's not easy to do so, but it's possbile) in response to an undesirable decision.

bhousel3• 14 years ago

I think even in cases of medical malpractice, most parties would better be served through arbitration than through a jury trial.

philwelch2• 14 years ago

It's democracy. The purpose of a jury trial isn't to get the most accurate result, it's to give the people direct control over the government. It's just as true, if not more true, to say that elections are a terrible way of fairly selecting lawmakers and presidents.

Karunamon• 14 years ago

The problem there is that correctness is almost completely on par with justice. If the jury gets it wrong (condemning an innocent man, what have you) law be damned, justice was not served.

The policies of politicos is a much more grey area with consequences not so immediate and very subjective many, many years after the fact.

rayiner9• 14 years ago

The cases aren't decided by jury trial. It's not like law and order where the jury returns "guilty/not guilty." The jury makes factual findings used by the judge to issue a ruling.

What this article refers to (using poor, imprecise language in the headline) is the jury's finding that Google copied, in the literal sense of the term, the Java API's. This is something the jury is totally qualified to decide. They can see the snippets of code put forth as evidence. They might not understand how it works, but they can see whether they are similar or not.

From here, the judge will decide whether API's are copyrightable. This is the real show. We know Google copied the API, the real question in this trial is whether that API is protectable under copyright law. The judge will answer this question.

After that, the jury will answer whether Google's copying is eligible for the fair use defense. That is to say, even if they did copy, and even if API's are protectable, was Google's use nonetheless of a kind that qualifies as "fair use." This decision doesn't really involve "nerd esoterica."

njharman• 14 years ago

Almost any trial that goes to jury is just as over 12 random peoples heads. Anything with forensics, anything that has expert witness. Even just understanding byzantine laws in the US is over everyone's heads. As most of this trial has more to do with copyright law than anything technological.

"nerd" stuff doen't have monopoly on complex

Natsu• 14 years ago

The jury was told to assume SSO is copyrightable. They were all but told they had to find infringement there, with fair use being the important question.

loverobots• 14 years ago

As I see it, it's not a win (yet?) for Oracle. Sort of AP suing me for using their paragraph without permission. I am guilty of using it but it may be fair use, thus allowed.

InclinedPlane2• 14 years ago

Things aren't going to get better until the law changes. The reason for software patents is to encourage research and innovation, they do nothing of the sort today and should be ended.

andybak• 14 years ago

Not that I disagree with you but this part of the trial is just about copyright.

hughw• 14 years ago

The topic at hand today is copyright, not patents.

InclinedPlane2• 14 years ago

Yes, but...

These companies would not have such large IP legal teams were it not for software patents, nor would they be in the regular habit of taking each other to court with the threat of multi-million dollar damages. As it happens, the copyright protections of an API are the issue in this particular case but this is just one battle in a larger war which is predominantly fought on the patent field. Were it not for software patents it's a fairly sure thing that a case of this sort would never see the light of day.

joejohnson• 14 years ago

Right now, the jury is watching a video about patents and patent lawsuits produced by the Federal Judicial Center, which is commonly shown to patent juries.

Is this said video? http://archive.org/details/gov.ntis.ava21157vnb1

eternalban2• 14 years ago

"If the verdict stands, the end result is that Java may not be as open source as it was thought to be. Oracle may be able to essentially take Java out of the public domain, at least as far as its use in cell phones."

I call b.s. on this. If the involvement of Oracle here is causing cognitive dissonance substitute Sun Microsystems and review issue.

Java is open source. There is an open source license and you can license it. (Note: You are implicitly agreeing to OSS licensing when e.g. forking on Github.com.)

> "as thought"

Terms of that license are well known. Nothing ambiguous to "think" about.

> "take out"

Violate my GNU licensed code and you may find I will "take [you] out" of market x.

If copyright violations of APIs are ok, then where the tooth in [GPL], for example. "Free as in freedom not free beer".

Locke1689• 14 years ago

This is a matter of law, not your opinion. If the judge rules that APIs are copyrightable and Oracle holds the copyright, Oracle has legal standing to bring cases that infringe its copyright, whether or not the code itself is licensed under the GPL.

eternalban2• 14 years ago

An article is not a legal opinion.

alok-g2• 14 years ago

Excerpt from [1]:

"What is copyrightable is creative expression," said Julie Samuels, an attorney with the Electronic Freedom Foundation "What is not [copyrightable] is functional information. The programming language is not. You can't copyright a language. It's what you make of that language."

This seems to assume that creation of a (computer programming) language does not involve creative expression. (I understand that writing a compiler for this language certainly does.) This may have been right in possibly older times when languages were not explicitly designed; does not sound right anymore.

Also, would you call sizeof(A) to be a part of the language (it is built into C/C++), or is it more like an API?

[1] http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57429147-92/oracle-gets-a-c...

WildUtah• 14 years ago

No one is saying that designing a language is uncreative. The distinction is not between creative and non-creative.

The question is between purely creative and functional. Functional things are usually not covered by copyright while creative things are. Things which are both need to be considered more carefully.

A computer language would never be copyrightable anyway because it is not a fixed expression. It's a set of rules for expressing things and that is never covered.

And APIs have never been covered because they're purely functional, regardless of the level of creativity involved.

alok-g2• 14 years ago

>> A computer language would never be copyrightable anyway because it is not a fixed expression

This helps! Thanks.

As you stated yourself, APIs do seem to fall in the same category. I think the distinction of APIs from language is very complex as there are things which may blur the boundary between the two.

ramblerman• 14 years ago

If Oracle wins what does that mean for java and it's developers. I know it will be pretty hard to find a non dramatic, overly sensational, opinion right now but I'm gonna try...

Would it have an effect on the jobtrend in java over the next 5 years?

azakai• 14 years ago

> If Oracle wins what does that mean for java and it's developers.

That's an important question, but the issues are even bigger. This isn't just about Java. If the judge finds that APIs are copyrightable, it affects a lot more.

For example, Microsoft has a promise not to sue over its patents on .NET. But if APIs are copyrightable, is Mono in infringement of Microsoft's copyright? Safety from patents is suddenly not enough.

Another example, Android uses Linux kernel headers, the API needed to access the kernel. The wide assumption has always been they are not copyrightable, so you can implement userspace apps that are not GPL. But if APIs are copyrightable, that might be less clear.

The bottom line is that this judge is going to decide, by himself, whether APIs are copyrightable. It's going to have a huge impact on our industry if he says "yes". It's scary to think about the amount of power he currently holds.

vph• 14 years ago

Google should have banked on Python as the language for the Android platform. It would have been a better choice in many ways.

afsina• 14 years ago

That would be wrong on so many levels. A better idea would be buying Sun.

Blunt• 14 years ago

I guess this means every code compiler is in jeopardy now too.

kyboren• 14 years ago

While I definitely agree that Judge Alsup's instruction to the jury, "assume SSO is copyrightable," biased the jury for the next phases, I doubt he will find that SSO is copyrightable.

http://digital-law-online.info/lpdi1.0/treatise22.html <--- precedent

jemeshsu• 14 years ago

Is there a machine learning algo that can predict who will win out eventually?

tubbo• 14 years ago

This is fucking BULLSHIT.

Jury rules Google violated copyright law, Google moves for mistrial

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