The one fact in law is that it’s unpredictable. Yesterday’s laws didn’t count on these days’ technical quandaries, so we call upon the courts to apply sober judgment and insightful know-how. Did the Founding Fathers suggest that to use recorded music via a month-to-month subscription? Are the engineers making autonomous motors accountable for their mishaps? And what do we do approximately APIs? Are they mechanical devices, works of art, equipment, or something else?
The long-running saga of Oracle v. Google (now in its 10th year) has been decided – then overturned and redecided – via several courts already and may well be headed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court for a very last choice. That offers you some idea of how complex and thorny this example is.
At issue is whether Google stole Java code from Oracle. At least, the case started that way. Now, it’s come down to whether or not software program APIs are included under copyright regulation, like books and magazines. And, if they may be, does that also suggest you can copy brief portions of the software program and speak to it, “honest use?”
First, a few ground policies. Justice is blind, so no honest rooting for your favorite enterprise to be triumphant just because you like them more. The truth that you like Company A better than Company B has no bearing on the deserves of the case.
Second, just because something appears proper or reasonable doesn’t suggest it’s criminal. Standing returned and squinting and then turning a thumbs-up or -wn ain’t how the prison manner is meant to work. It’s precisely to keep away from that type of intestine-level decision-making when we write down legal guidelines in the first arplaceAnd 0.33, just because a legal ruling might reason awful matters doesn’t mean it’s wrong. You can’t decide the legality of something via its side effects
