Judge Alsup asks Oracle/Google to brief API issue in light of new EU ruling

Re:Judge Alsup asks Oracle/Google to brief API issue in ligh... by hetman on Thursday May 03, 2012 @11:01PM (#3926816)

I'm interested by the statement that "the Copyright Act is meant to protect expression but not vocabulary". Could someone familiar with copyright law elaborate on this?

I'm interested in the general concept, but also curious how it applies to specific cases. For example, is the format of a media file just as copyrightable as the contents represented by it? Is this in line with the spirit of copyright?

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Re:Judge Alsup asks Oracle/Google to brief API issue in ligh... by clavalle on Friday May 04, 2012 @10:35AM (#3928533)

The format of a media file is not vocabulary.

The format of a media file is possibly patentable not copyrightable.

In terms of, say, music, vocabulary would be notes, scales, the sound of instruments, even to some extent, phrasing.

Film would be lighting effects, framing etc. etc.

Basically, vocabulary is the stuff that is meaningless by itself but represent critical parts to the whole of a creative work when arranged in a meaningful fashion.

So that is the crux of the question: is an API meaningful in it's own right or is it just a building block that holds little meaning by itself and exists only to be composed into meaningful works?

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