Posted on 02/26/2020 1:33:45 PM PST by Kaslin
The high-profile Supreme Court case between tech giants Oracle and Google has kicked into high gear. Last week the Supreme Court received over 30 filings in support of Oracle, from luminaries in law and technology, prominent former Members of Congress, and even the Trump administration. This is especially noteworthy because the Obama administration also supported Oracle’s position in a previous filing.
The case arises from Google’s copying of 11,500 lines of Oracle’s computer code, known as “declaratory code,” to use in the Android platform. Google is using this litigation as an opportunity to argue for narrow intellectual property rights and overbroad exceptions to those rights. But they’ve overplayed their hand to such an extreme that their arguments actually contradict each other.
As a rule, computer code is protected under copyright law as a literary work – like a book or a poem. Google argues that Oracle’s code should be denied the usual protection because it has become so popular that it is effectively an industry standard that would only function if Google copied it exactly. They go to great pains to emphasize this point over and over. In the brief Google filed with the Supreme Court, they insisted: “those were the only instructions that could perform their functions”; “no other instructions can perform the declarations’ function”; and so Google asserts their copying was “mandatory.” The kicker is that after all that, Google turns around and insists their exact copying was “transformative.”
The reality of what happened is Apple surprised Google with the revolutionary iPhone and Google had to scramble to catch up. Now that they’re being called out for copying Oracle’s copyrighted works, they’re employing contradictory arguments to try to justify their actions and weaken copyright law. The Supreme Court should see through all this and sustain effective copyright protection as the driver of creativity, expression, and economic growth.
I am actually with Google on this (a bit)
Standards apply everywhere. When you plug into an outlet, you can ALWAYS expect 120V, 60 cycle AC. Without a network protocol EVERYONE copied (exactly) we would not all be able to connect to the internet.
Google is saying the same thing applies to this, because it has become a de-facto ‘standard’
But then they ruined their own argument with contradiction.
The Supreme Court should see through all this and sustain effective copyright protection as the driver of creativity, expression, and economic growth.
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I’d certainly hope so, but who knows how the agenda driven leftist globalists on the court will rule.
“has become a de-facto ‘standard’”
But you still pay the power company for the electricity.
Need to buy the product to use the electricity.
Need to have the standardized plug In the US.
Have the house wired, inspected, built to code etc . . .
De-facto doesn’t mean you get it for free.
De-facto means that it’s such a great thing, that it’s EASIER to use it than inventing something else.
Remember Netscape vs Microsoft?
Standards are generally good, they promote efficiency and give users freedom of choice. But someone has to develop them, and they deserve the same protection as any other IP. The usual resolution is to put the necessary IP in the public domain. And let everyone use it as they choose to create differentiated solutions.
Read George Gilders book Google: Life after the fall and open your eyes to the real reason Google exists and why they give you so much free stuff...
Because it is the data they crave and collect to sell to others who will pay bigly for it...
The conspirators in the deep state were given Google e-mail addresses by Eric Schmidt who has since left the company, in fact the day after Trumps EO at the end of Nov 2017 against child trafficking. Many more CEO’s are doing so as the noose tightens
Back to “Google” as the de facto search engine. By their own admission of the 2.4 Billion websites in the world they will at best show you 4% of them. I stopped using them years ago as you see much more using alternatives. If you sit 10 people down in the same room with the same search items they will get 10 different result sets.
Alphabet is now the top of the Company and Search is a subsidiary with annual revenue somewhere in the range of $26 Billion, and that is just revenue from “searches”
BS
It is the revenue from collecting and selling data that makes up the Lions share of that number
Data, it’s collection, management and most of all security is what I do daily and keeping it from them is a passion and my purpose.
They are the standard alright, for evil
And BTW they had nothing to do with HTTP or anything else to do with standards unless it fed their coffers. Tim Berners Lee developed HTTP and others I have been in contact with support the same position I take
And there is a growing movement to deny them their lifeblood, on all fronts
Choose
But do so wisely
Freedom is never free
Sic Semper Tyrranis
You missed my point completely, didn’t you
That’s a great conservative view... “I don’t like his company so I’ll trample their rights”
Amplified it actually, with additional info
There is always another way to implement something that doesn’t involve copying unless it is required for interoperablity, as in making devices running oracle’s software won’t work with android devices.
That’s the only way I would buy their argument.
That’s the only way I would buy their argument.
From my limited reading on this subject, that's pretty much what was going on. It's an API. If you have a published API, you should expect it to be used. Oracle has done some hinky stuff with Java. Sadly, since both Oracle and Google are evil personified, I wish there was a way for them both to lose.
I use an Android phone, but still say it couldn’t of happened to a bunch of nicer guys./s
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