Re:Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google
by hcknwscommenter on Wednesday March 28, 2018 @01:10AM
(#16695465)
Well of course it is possible to make derivatives of APIs that are also subject to copyright. My point is that it is also possible to make a clean room reimplimentation that is not a derivative work, which is much more valuable. Just don't copy is the lesson here.
Re:Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google
by wtallis on Wednesday March 28, 2018 @03:08AM
(#16696002)
> My point is that it is also possible to make a clean room reimplimentation that is not a derivative work,
You have not at all established this point. What makes you think that the API of a reverse engineered implementation is not tainted by the copyright of the original API? It's clear that clean room reverse engineering produces an independent implementation, but it also seems clear that such a technique does not prevent the structure, sequence and organization of the original API from strongly influencing the structure, sequence and organization of the reimplementation's API.
The legal status of reverse engineering is not at all clear-cut. There are many nuances depending on the circumstances, and much of it is determined by case law rather than statute. There's no clear basis for you to make claims about how this new class of copyright (on APIs) will interact with reverse engineering. However, it is much simpler to state that if APIs are a work subject to copyright, then it must be possible to make derivative works of APIs that are also subject to copyright absent any explicit exception or fair use right.