> Anything that is written down, recorded or filmed automatically receives copyright protection.

This is factually untrue. Many things written down, recorded, and filmed do not receive copyright protection in the united states. A common example is recipes.

There is extremely good reason to think that APIs specifically fall into the set of things that can not be copyrighted. That's what the original ruling in this case was (overturned on appeal by the federal circuit). That's what a good portion of Google's brief argues.