{"id":1272,"date":"2012-12-30T20:01:26","date_gmt":"2012-12-30T20:01:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ncjolt.org\/?p=1272"},"modified":"2020-06-04T20:54:04","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T20:54:04","slug":"oracle-america-inc-v-google-inc-the-only-nonliteral-aspects-of-java-apis-protected-under-copyright-law-are-the-ones-nobody-wants-to-copy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/articles\/oracle-america-inc-v-google-inc-the-only-nonliteral-aspects-of-java-apis-protected-under-copyright-law-are-the-ones-nobody-wants-to-copy\/","title":{"rendered":"Oracle America, Inc. v. Google, Inc.: The Only Nonliteral Aspects of Java APIs Protected Under Copyright Law Are the Ones Nobody Wants to Copy"},"content":{"rendered":"<div title=\"Page 1\">\n<div>\n<div>\nIn 1976, Congress revised the Copyright Act, extending protection to computer programs. The scope of this protection, however, has remained unclear. While all courts agree that source code is protected from direct copying, they disagree as to the extent of protection for nonliteral elements, such as the code\u2019s structure, sequence, and organization. Oracle America, Inc. v. Google, Inc. is the latest case considering the issue and is consistent with a trend of decreased protection. Practically speaking, Oracle offers no protection for the nonliteral aspects of Oracle\u2019s APIs. This weak level of protection results from computer programs\u2019 functionality. Some might be tempted to extend the court\u2019s reasoning to justify a more explicit distinction in copyright law, denying protection to the nonliteral elements of all computer programs. However, this conclusion would be contrary both to Oracle\u2019s holding, which extends only to the APIs considered, and to the policy that the Copyright Act is designed to effectuate.\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 1976, Congress revised the Copyright Act, extending protection to computer programs. The scope of this protection, however, has remained unclear. While all courts agree that source code is protected from direct copying, they disagree as to the extent of protection for nonliteral elements, such as the code\u2019s structure, sequence, and organization. Oracle America, Inc. <a href=\"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/articles\/oracle-america-inc-v-google-inc-the-only-nonliteral-aspects-of-java-apis-protected-under-copyright-law-are-the-ones-nobody-wants-to-copy\/\" class=\"more-link\">&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,93,53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1272"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1272"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6636,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1272\/revisions\/6636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}