Bonum Certa Men Certa

Techrights Commends US Supreme Court for Supporting Programmers by Defending Fair Use

Stephen Breyer, U.S. Supreme Court judge



Summary: Stephen Breyer (above), the author of the latest big decision after an 11-year legal battle, is once again doing the right thing from a software developer's perspective; only two Justices opposed this decision or dissented

Copyright maximalists have suffered a blow; as it turns out, on a holiday, SCOTUS did the right thing by deciding that copyrights on APIs are a disservice to society. As LWN put it, a "long saga of Oracle's copyright-infringement against Google, which copied much of the Java API for use in Android, has come to an end" (no appeals anymore).

"Although Google itself is a monopoly, a decision against Google in this case would have devastated software development in general, no matter if proprietary or Free software."A law firms-funded site said "a 6-2 decision authored by Justice Breyer, the Supreme Court has held that Google’s copying of the JAVA API naming convention was a fair use as a matter of law." Another Oracle proponent said: "This decision was supportd [sic] by six of the nine justices."

Slam dunk. Press coverage is starting to come out, e.g. HotHardware. Today isn't just a bright sunny day but also a holiday and an epic milestone in the battle against copyright maximalists and software monopolists. Although Google itself is a monopoly, a decision against Google in this case would have devastated software development in general, no matter if proprietary or Free software.

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