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Comment by XCabbage | Hacker News Reader

This clearly isn't a reasonable standard for asserting copyright. By the same logic:

* If I provide an outline of a political argument to a opinion columnist for them to write up in detail, I should own copyright on the argument and prevent anyone else from making it

* If I describe a novel combination of techniques to use in a photoshop to create an interesting effect, I own copyright to the process and prevent anyone else from using it

* If I come up with a new hairstyle that goes viral and becomes popular, I should own copyright to the hairstyle and be able to stop anyone else having it.

These are all bad ideas, and so is allowing copyrighting APIs. Being a genuine creative work requiring significant labour is simply not a high enough bar on its own.

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>* If I provide an outline of a political argument to a opinion columnist for them to write up in detail, I should own copyright on the argument and prevent anyone else from making it

What is code if not an outline for someone else to write up in detail? Your java code is compiled to byte code and then further onto machine code. Why should we draw the line at the code level of abstraction but not take the step to the API level of abstraction?

> Why should we draw the line at the code level of abstraction

Because code provides a concrete, complete, formally understandable semantics. Code is not an "abstraction" over different concrete implementations; it is a specific, concrete implementation. While compilers may substitute the code for another variant that preserves the same behavior, they are required to ensure that this substitution preserves observable behaviors (unless those are undefined behaviors), and the behavior that is to be preserved is defined entirely by the execution of the original code.

>Because code provides a concrete, complete, formally understandable semantics. Code is not an "abstraction" over different concrete implementations; it is a specific, concrete implementation.

It's not any more concrete than an API. Your Java code compiles to different bytecode depending on the version of Java you use. It then further changes to machine code that differs based on the JVM installed, operating system, and processor.

>While compilers may substitute the code for another variant that preserves the same behavior, they are required to ensure that this substitution preserves observable behaviors (unless those are undefined behaviors), and the behavior that is to be preserved is defined entirely by the execution of the original code.

While [programmers] may substitute the [implementation code] for another variant that preserves the same behavior, they are required to ensure that this substitution preserves observable behaviors (unless those are undefined behaviors), and the behavior that is to be preserved is defined entirely by the [definition] of the original [API].

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