Google's Fair Use Defense Overturned

Back in 2016, I heaved a sigh of relief when Google emerged the winner in the ongoing lawsuit pursued by Oracle, in their claim that Google infringed on Java's copyright while building the Android platform. And back then, I resolved to follow the case and see what else Oracle came up with. Fast forward to 2018, and I'm not doing much Android development these days. Heck, I'm not even doing much Java, to be honest. What with work and school combined, and making what little time I had left for the girlfriend, I completely missed the news that Oracle had brought the fight to Google again. And this time, they won. A case of third time lucky?

The case was brought up in the Federal Courts where the previous judgement pertaining to the "Fair Use" defense, was overturned. Apparently, Google was found guilty of not only using Java APIs, but building their own version of the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) that Android apps could run on... and then failing to obtain a license from Oracle for that. Yep, that one piece of documentation turned out to be Google's undoing and now they owe Oracle about 9 billion dollars.

A whole lot of money.

And yep, that's a whole lot of money. Probably chump change to Google though.

The implication here is that any distributor who's built any system on top of that ostensibly free Android platform may now owe Oracle if they choose to pursue. Asus, Xiaomi, Samsung... the list is a lot longer and scarier than I could reproduce off the top of my head. And that cost, though I fervently hope otherwise, may trickle down to the consumer.

But Java is Open-source!

Yes. And yes, the Android platform was distributed free-of-charge to other vendors and Google didn't earn a single penny from Android platform sales directly. But this did help the Android platform grow to their current size, and they are getting a healthy amount of advertising revenue off that. 42 billion, if Oracle are to be believed.

Unfortunately, even if they were earning zilch from this, that argument still doesn't hold water. The issue is that Google violated copyright, not how much they earned from doing so. If I were rich and you went all Robin Hood on me, stealing my money and giving it all away to the poor, that would still be stealing.

Then again, if there was no money to be gained from suing Google, Oracle would hardly bother, would they?

The layman's version

All that jazz about Java APIs and whatnot can be intimidating, I know. Let's look at it in simpler terms.

One sleek, black Nissan.

Suppose you manufacture Nissan. Nice car, great engine. And then someone takes a Nissan apart, and uses most of the parts, along with some other parts, to make a whole new car that kind of looks like your Nissan, but performs in a different way. And then still calls it a Nissan, or a Nissan 2.0. Now people are buying that Nissan instead of yours. That's pretty much what is happening here.

The silver lining in all this...

Java can still be used for free for non-commercial projects. That hasn't changed. Even for independent developers, it's free as long as they don't attempt to build their own platform off Java code and distribute it as a competing platform. And even if they do build their own platform that may not be compatible with the JVM, all that's required is a license.

Although, who wants to develop in Java with that Sword of Damocles hanging over your head? That's an innovation stifler, right there. But at least the line has been drawn, and the message is loud and clear. Do what you want, just don't cross that line.

The fight goes on?

Google's not letting this go. But legal minds more brilliant than mine will be needed to figure a way out of this!

Java good one,
T___T

Google and the Fair Use Defense

In 2010, Oracle decided to take Google to court over a copyright issue involving Java's APIs. Having a questionable attention span at best, I haven't been following the case through all its intricate twists. Google had initially won the case in 2012, when Judge William Alsup decided that APIs were not subject to copyright laws.

"So long as the specific code used to implement a method is different, anyone is free under the Copyright Act to write his or her own code to carry out exactly the same function or specification of any methods used in the Java API."

- Judge William Alsup

Which makes sense when one considers that these APIs were for general use, and that these APIs, while borrowing heavily from their source material, had been reverse engineered and re-implemented for Google's Android Java.

Surprise - in 2014, the ruling was overturned. The SSO of APIs were now subject to copyright, and Google found itself in a fight again.

This was a source of consternation in the open source community. There is, and always has been, a great tradition of sharing. We took each other's ideas, expanded on them, and took them in new directions. We read each other's code, learned from it, perhaps added to it, and passed it on. We were always reasonably secure in the knowledge that as long as we didn't do anything outrageous like copy someone's stuff wholesale, pass it off as our own and profit from it; we were well within our legal rights. Now this?

A week ago, Google won via the use of the "Fair Use" defense. The court ruled in Google's favor.

In effect, Google landed a solid blow to the jaw of Oracle's lawsuit. It was a welcome blow struck on the behalf of open-source developers everywhere.

The winner via
knockout...

Because while Google was ostensibly the winner in this bout, make no mistake - had Google lost, it would have been a sad day for those of us peddling open source. From the lowliest hobbyist to the sweatshop code monkeys, to system engineers in tech behemoths. Sure, people like me are too small potatoes to even register on Oracle's radar. But we work for people who do leverage on open source technology one way or another. And if Oracle had won this one, the effects would not have stopped at Google. The fallout would have affected all businesses leveraging on open source technology, now leery of continuing on their current path. And that would have affected employment opportunities. Resources diverted to prepare for legal battles. Way, way less peace of mind.

Remember, Google can afford to pay legal fees and fight court battles. Google could perhaps even afford to lose the case. What about the rest of us?

Yes, I'm being simplistic here. But that's the gist of it.

So Google won. Yay, Fair Use FTW. Thing is - should it even have gotten to that point? I'm no lawyer, but open source is open source. With that particular high-profile court case, any sense of security we might have had while using Java (or indeed, any other open source platform) just took a serious dent.

It's not over yet!

Oracle has declared their intention to appeal the decision. Let's see how that turns out.

What a sueperb win,
T___T