> Its being placed into class named java.lang.Math, though, is not. That is a product of the way it is arranged, which is a matter of design, not of necessity. It's hard to imagine any particular reason why a function would need to have "java" in its name in order correctly calculate the maximum of two numbers.> The crux of the case, then, is the copyrightability of those design decisions about how the API members are arranged. The set of specific functions it performs is, as per Baker not the focus of the argument.
To me, many of the analogies being bandied about don't really capture the distinction you're making. The football playbook for example. Rather than considering the playbook as a description of the game, and thus thinking of what Google did as analogous to copying the playbook, it seems to me that what Google did is analogous to copying the playbook's legend that describes the meaning of the Xs, Os, and arrows that comprise the playbook diagrams, as well as the playbook's table of contents, but none of the actual play diagrams.
To alter the metaphor a bit, Let's say that an author swipes the table of contents for the Lord of the Rings, and nothing else, and writes their own story that conforms to the LotR plot only to the extent that the ToC requires it. Characters and location names that appear in the ToC are used, but nothing else about them is the same. The page numbers don't even have to match as the new work is half the length. We also omit a few things from the ToC, like the several afterwords and appendixes, as well as anything that mentions Tolkien by name. Finally, the work itself isn't called "The Lord of the Rings", but "Doom of Shadows", or whatever.
The work isn't a parody or a satire, nothing is the same except to the extent necessary to make the identical ToC work (in terms of the name, order, and organization of the chapters).
To me, this is a good analogy. The two works are "compatible" in the sense that the ToC is an interface like an API, the ToC and the organization of the book were obviously copied verbatim, but nothing else was.
In this analogy (which presupposes that there are other works that use the ToC as an API), the same sort of questions from this case can be asked: 1. Is the ToC copyrightable per se (since there is obviously some creativity in naming, ordering, and grouping the chapters, but the ToC has slo), and 2. even if it is, is copying it to serve as the outline of a new work fair use?
Does the answer change if the book isn't fiction, eg. a cookbook (dish categories and recipe names, but not the actual recipes) or a textbook (only structure and organization of the subject matter copied, not the actual text or excercises)?
To me it seems fairly obvious that the correct answers are 1. mmmmaybe for the fiction example though I think not, but definitely not for the cookbook or textbook, and 2. It is absolutely fair use for all categories of works, even fiction