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A comment on Google vs. Oracle: The Supreme Court will decide software development’s future?. Parent comment

Re:Google vs. Oracle: The Supreme Court will decide software... by dragonwriter on Monday January 13, 2020 @12:44AM (#22032124)
> While I’m really hoping that Google wins this, I also hope that the Supreme Court applies the law as they see it, without any consideration at all for the social impact

On the fair use, if not the copyrightability, issue, social impact is an express consideration of the law. (Though given that the copyright power is expressly contingent on a particular social purpose, it arguably is on copyrightability even if the statute doesn't invoke it.)

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Re:Google vs. Oracle: The Supreme Court will decide software... by AmericanChopper on Monday January 13, 2020 @02:29AM (#22032543)
> social impact is an express consideration of the law

It is, but in a very narrow sense. The fair use test is a part of the law, some of the factors it considers relate to social impact (for example allowance made for education), but it has no general ‘social impact’ criteria.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/107

This is the only definition of “fair use” that Google will be arguing they comply with.

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