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Comment by nvarsj | Hacker News Reader

This is a complete dramatization. Are you copying 10k lines of code from a licensed code base into your project without permission and using it in your commercial product?

Github projects already should strive to use correct licensing, and comply with the license of code they use. There is nothing new here.

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You don't understand what this case is about. This is about copyrighting API descriptions. Not copying code, but reimplementing an API that someone else created. Think about how many people created each part of the various web APIs. Is XmlHTTPRequest now owned by Microsoft? Who invented the Blink tag? Who owns which parts of the SQL language? The entire software industry is built on the idea that APIs are not copyrightable. If you thought software patent trolling was bad, buddy, you ain't see nothin' yet.

hehe this is the correct answer. basically if i make my own FileWriter class and choose to name one of the methods in that class "write()", then I'm infringing on Oracle XD

Wonder what happens if I call it "_write()"

void DocumentScribbler.scribble(String s)

Using String as a ProgType(tm)? That's a paddlin'. We use CharGroup around here, which we are willing to license for a small fee. For a limited time, get 10% off when you license three or more ProgTypes(tm)! Indemnification licensed separately. Contact our enterprise relations desk for details.

And then when you contact them it goes to voicemail, they call you back 9 times 3 days later and sell your email address to everyone under the sun :)

OH and then when theyre about to drop in stock price because they dont know how to deliver valuable products, they use the US government to force other companies to buy their product otherwise the US government will kick that prospective customer out of US markets ^.^

You've excluded a huge amount of middle ground. There's a comprise somewhere in the middle that allows compatability but stops blatant copying.

> There's a comprise somewhere in the middle that allows computability but stops blatant copying.

Did you mean to say compatibility rather than computability?

OK, but that's not what this case is about.

The compromise is pay Oracle money. Just open your wallet and pay, Oracle will tell you when to stop.

This is why clear copyright and licensing is so important. Unless something is in the public domain, don't use it unless you have permission.

> The entire software industry is built on the idea that APIs are not copyrightable.

The entire open source movement was built on copyright (ala FSF and the GPL). So this doesn't even make sense. It's not anarchy as you imply and copyright has a purpose.

Also, copyright is far more limited than patents. Patents are dangerous because it's like claiming ownership over a mathematical formula that anyone can derive. It's completely different.

11k Lines of code seems like a lot especially if you're insisting that it was just wholly ripped out of an existing codebase but that isn't the case here at all and even Oracle make that clear in their analogy:

>It says what Google has done is like taking key parts of those books — chapter titles, character names, the first sentence of each paragraph — writing a new book, and selling it.

If you're reimplementing APIs as Google has done then at some point you _need_ to copy the structure of the existing API, the method signatures, the names of the methods, the descriptions of what they do, etc, and while you may be able to dig out a thesaurus to claim enough original creative work at some point it's all for moot because there's only so much you can do before you'll start infringing upon Oracles creative expression of their API which severely limits what you are able to do with it.

If Oracle wins this case it will have huge implications for any reverse engineered work like Wine or graphics drivers where such projects will cease to exist, because it won't actually matter if it's 100% your own implementation as any interface to existing APIs or hardware _will_ infringe upon other companies copyright.

As far as Youtube Content ID goes it doesn't actually matter if it's 3 seconds or 3 minutes of copyrighted work, if it's matched then Youtube will let those companies claim revenue from your video which may be an hour long. The alternative here is the legal system and courts which may absolutely agree that 3 seconds of use in an hour long video is fair use, but you're still going to end up in court to defend that usage. It's unlikely that Oracle has enough sway to force Github to implement a similar content matching system but if they did it doesn't really matter what threshold the courts set for fair use for reimplementing APIs just like it doesn't matter for Youtube, best make sure all your repos don't use something like XMLHttpRequest() or your repo may disappear, and of course if Oracle doesn't have the sway to force Github into implementing such a system you're still going to have to go check through all your your repos because if they feel you've infringed upon their creative work they'll be able to issue takedown requests and your only recourse will be through the courts.

> Are you copying 10k lines of code from a licensed code base into your project without permission and using it in your commercial product?

You surely meant 9, not 10k, lines of code for rangeCheck(), didn't you?

I'm not sure it is. Given that an original API might have a single method with the same signature as one used in a copyrighted API or the malicious actors we have in this industry, I can see the problems with YouTube Content ID coming to GitHub.

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