The trial between Google and Oracle sew the seeds of a new age for mobile development
The Supreme Court is about to settle a copyright dispute that started in 2010, which precipitated the next age for cross-platform dev.
Oracle’s unprecedented legal actions against Google
Google reimplemented several Java APIs (Application Programming Interface) into Android, especially 37 packages that copy the “structure, sequence, and organisation”. It is a short sequence of words that call a service, e.g. . Those APIs include java.lang and java.util, basic packages that offer key functions such as dates and times. In a nutshell, not much can be done without them and renaming them is no use.
Although there is clear copyrighting law around code, there is not much regarding APIs. Google’s argument is that there is no other way to implement the logic than to replicate. To which Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh replies :
“You’re not allowed to copy a song just because it’s the only way to express that song.”
Analogical hearing
The judge has a point, and it appears there were other ways at the time; Apple and Microsoft both managed to release their own mobile OS without such practices. Delving deeper in the music industry analog: copying an API is not like covering a song, it’s like sampling (* if you are not familiar with sample please see at the bottom).
There is no process to legally clear a sample. Sampled artists need to follow legal process to obtain remuneration. For instance, in 2002 Jacques Loussier sued Eminem for sampling Pulsion on the song Kill you, which features on the album The Marshall Mathers LP (25 million copies). The trial was settled for an undisclosed amount. Did this set a precedent that deprived beat makers of their main source of income ? Hardly enough, but it reminded platinum cd products to set out with sampled authors.
The case and the coda
The dispute between Google and Oracle is heading the same way. Whatever the verdict, the legal process for API copyright infringement will remain unsuitable. Companies that go to court with such claims are likely to face prolonged hesitant actions. Exposed firms will switch to harmless APIs and find early agreements to save money. The question that remains around this trail is if Google were to lose what would be the cost ?
It depends whether they get copped with a heavy fine or a royalty for every android device. Considering the financial risk involved they already burnt bridges with java :
1. The first “stable” version of the Flutter Framework (1.0) was released on December 2018
2. Kotlin was promoted the preferred language for Android app development in 2019
3. The fuchsia OS website was released this year
Google rolled out a strategy to go beyond android, with a language and an OS that is less prone to risk. Following this trend we decided to build Assurly app on Flutter. We are eager to share more of this experience in the next posts and will also stay tuned on the Supreme Court final verdict.
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NB : For the record, another track from Loussier’s Pulsion was sampled on an album that barely made the charts in 2006, Black Mozart (Madlib), no legal actions followed.
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About sampling
A sample is a small musical loop copied from another artist and pasted into one’s own songs. Here are a few tympanums-blowing samples that you might be aware of :
* Cola Bottle Baby (Edwin Birdsong)
* Last Men Standing (Gianfranco Reverberi and Gian Piero Reverberi)
* Brainless (Eminem)
If you would like further information on sampling, please get in touch with Fabio our Customer Success Manager, he has a label dedicated to beat-makers and produces his owns samples ! Here is his own recipe on how to make a sample ;
First find a cool piano loop, like a demo track on an old vintage electric keyboard, e.g. the Suzuki Omnichord OM-300, invite your mates play along, hit the drums, put some reverb, scratch a poem, whine in the mike, give the tune a catchy cowboy name, release it and the world single is out of its cage !
