What APIs Are and What They Aren’t
I’ve been following the coverage of the Google-Oracle case in SCOTUS for a few weeks now (if you haven’t heard of it, you can read about it here and here). The difference in how it is being covered by outlets aimed at lawyers vs outlets aimed at developers seems to mirror the inherent differences between the legal sphere and technological sphere. The law evolves in a gradual, measured manner. New concepts take years to translate into legal rules and frameworks. Technology evolves at a more rapid pace, adopting new frameworks, or applying old frameworks in a new way, constantly.
In the courtroom and in the coverage of this case, APIs have been equated to football playbooks, codes to a safe, QWERTY keyboards, and various other analogue analogies. None of these is an accurate reflection of what Java APIs are to Java. An accurate analogy that would fully convey to the judges how to apply existing copyright concepts to this use case can be drawn, for instance an analogy to languages (which Java is, more than it is football players, the contents of a safe, or a keyboard), and the resulting comparison of APIs to dictionaries. but it would be easier to apply the law in disputes involving technology if the judges or juries deciding the case had at least a basic understanding of what software code and programming languages are, how they are structured and how they interact.
As a tech lawyer with some technical background, it seems evident to me that existing principals of copyright law may easily be applied to this case to decide it in the way that most accurately represents what copyright is meant to protect, and what it’s not. But the lack of technical understanding amongst those charged with applying copyright law in this case forces the lawyers on either side to draw analogies to situations the judges are more familiar with.
The stakes in this case are high, and regardless of how SCOTUS finds, its ruling will have a significant impact on how the industry operates, with many needing to adapt and update their practices. That being the case, one would hope that the case doesn’t hinge on which analogy the parties’ lawyers came up with better resonates with the judges.
