Supreme Court Finds Google’s Copying of Oracle’s APIs a Fair Use | Hacker News Reader

Supreme Court Finds Google’s Copying of Oracle’s APIs a Fair Use

ilntoday.com

53 pointssim_card_map12 comments

This article is from a month ago and the decision was extensively discussed on HN back then.

Yeah not to discourage further discussion but it would be good if admins could add a date to the title.

The actual decision was in April, this is the megathread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26699106

Let's hope this is the end. This law suit was a nuclear weapon that could have destroyed the entire API economy. Oracle was irresponsible bringing this suit.

I get what your saying but maybe in a weird way we should Oracle be thankful that this is now cleared up in a definitive way.

Smaller companies who do not have the resources to fight such a thing can now refer to this case without having to fight this long battle.

I suppose so, but I don't think this was something that needed to be decided in court. 100% of software engineers had decided this was fair use already, and built the world on top of this principle. Oracle wasn't even testing the load strength of the bridge, they were just being Oracle: sue instead of innovate.

The problem is, you can tie someone up a long time if they're using your copyrighted stuff, even if it is fair use. This was a victory for people with deep pockets, not the little guy.

Finally. It's absurd that it took the Supreme Court to settle this.

Agreed, but I think a lot of us sighed a sigh of relief.

When you've got two massive companies and potentially billions of dollars resting on a case then it will keep going up until there is no more up to go to.

i just like two dystopian craphole companies tying up each other's money in the courtroom. i hope it continues.

Accept this means anyone can copy anyone else's API. This will lead to the dystopian craphole companies of today becoming more dystopian and even crappier tomorrow as they trample over any small and successful entity.

Being able to copy an API is a feature, not a bug. For the same reason that if you buy a crankset for a bike you should be able to get one that fits.

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