A jury convicted Android to use the Java API in good faith.
The two-week trial between Oracle and Google has come to an end. Oracle spent millions of dollars preparing a lawsuit and paying lawyers. She carefully prepared for the next process, excluding from the jury only one person with a degree in IT. According to a survey of candidates for jury, he was also the only one who, even before the process, understood the meaning of the term “fair use” (he learned about it while studying at the University of California at Berkeley). But the exclusion of this juror did not help Oracle.
After three days of discussion yesterday, the remaining jurors issued a unanimous verdict that the use of the Java API in Android is an example of fair use under copyright law.
If the verdict were different, the judge would continue the process, starting the phase of damage assessment. Oracle company claimed $ 9 billion
“I pay tribute to you for your hard work on this case,” appealed to the jury, District Judge William Alsupe, who controls this trial since 2010. - The court brings you gratitude and frees. I would like to go to the jury deliberation room and personally shake hands with each of you. ”
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William Alsup received a special fame during one of the episodes of the hearings in May 2012, when it was about damages of $ 150 thousand for the “theft” for Android rangeCheck (9 lines of code) and test files. Suddenly, it turned out that the judge is able to program .
If, using the example of
Nine lines of
Google has published a statement in which it called this victory important for everyone. "Today’s verdict that Android faithfully uses the Java API represents a victory for the entire Android ecosystem, for the Java developer community, for programmers who rely on open and free programming languages ​​to develop innovative programs for users."
The litigation between Oracle and Google over the Java API in Android has been going on for six years . In 2010, the first lawsuit was filed, in 2012, Judge Alsup ruled that APIs are not subject to copyright protection at all, but this decision was overturned in the Court of Appeal. Now the jury approved another option for defending against Oracle claims: Android’s programming interfaces have been described as an example of fair use of Java code.
Programmer Dan Bornstein, who testified at the trial, called the Dalvik virtual machine on behalf of a small fishing village in Iceland. Photo: Dan Bornstein
From the point of view of free software advocates, this is not a very good option, because fair use still implies that copyright laws are indeed applicable to the Java API. In fact, they should not be subject to copyright at all, as Judge Alsup in 2012 argued in detail. But it's better than nothing.
Oracle intends to appeal again.
“We are firmly convinced that Google has developed Android by illegally copying key Java technology in order to quickly enter the mobile device market. Oracle started this lawsuit to stop Google’s illegal activities. We believe that there are numerous grounds for filing an appeal, and we plan to return this case to the federal district court for appeal, ”said Dorian Daley, Oracle's chief lawyer.
"They copied 11,500 lines of code," said Oracle attorney Peter Bicks (Peter Bicks) in the last word before the verdict. - This is not discussed. They took our code, copied it, and pasted it directly into Android. ”
Representatives of Google responded that the Java programming language has always been “free and open” to use - this also applies to the re-implementation of the Java API. One of the witnesses at the trial was the executive director of Sun Microsystems, which developed Java. This company bought Oracle in 2009. He recognized Android as a legitimate, competitive product.
Oracle Executive Director Larry Ellison first welcomed the appearance of Android, but “changed his mind when he tried to use Java for his smartphone and failed,” Google lawyer Robert Van Nest told the jury.
After three days of discussion yesterday, the remaining jurors issued a unanimous verdict that the use of the Java API in Android is an example of fair use under copyright law.
If the verdict were different, the judge would continue the process, starting the phase of damage assessment. Oracle company claimed $ 9 billion
“I pay tribute to you for your hard work on this case,” appealed to the jury, District Judge William Alsupe, who controls this trial since 2010. - The court brings you gratitude and frees. I would like to go to the jury deliberation room and personally shake hands with each of you. ”
')
William Alsup received a special fame during one of the episodes of the hearings in May 2012, when it was about damages of $ 150 thousand for the “theft” for Android rangeCheck (9 lines of code) and test files. Suddenly, it turned out that the judge is able to program .
Fragment of the transcript of court hearings of May 15, 2012
Oracle : The question is not how big the damage is. The question is whether it is possible to close eyes on the commercial benefit of the violator on the basis that the volume of violations is small.
In addition, it is not clear to me that a comparison of nine lines of code and 15 million is fair, because of these, 10 million is the Linux kernel. But still, nine lines is a small percentage. The test files are much larger, but they are not present, at least in the current version of Android.
But both of them made Google profit by speeding up the development time for Android. The speed of development for Android was a critical factor; we have already demonstrated this before, and we will further illustrate this fact. They wanted faster, faster, faster. This code copying allowed them to use less resources and speed development. Suppose they accelerated the development by two days. They now earn $ 3 million per day, activating 700 thousand or 800 thousand phones. [According to Google estimates, they earn from $ 8 to $ 10 on each device]. If you just get acceleration for two days, then it’s six or seven million dollars, and this amount does not follow directly from the value of the [stolen] code itself.
They [Google] want to present the situation in such a way that if something is small, then the offender does not make a profit. Yes, someone else could write this code, but how long would it take for him?
...
Judge Alsup : I didn’t know anything about Java before [parsing] this problem. But I used to, and now, do a lot of programming in other languages. I wrote code snippets like rangeCheck hundreds of times before. I could do it, you could do it. In other words, you can copy it at the same speed as writing yourself. It was an accident. In no case can not say that this has accelerated their entry into the market. You are one of the best lawyers in America, how can you even make such arguments?
Oracle : I want to return to the rangeCheck function.
Judge : rangeCheck! Yes, it only checks that the input numbers belong to a range, and generates something like an exception. That witness said that even a schoolboy can write this.
If, using the example of
rangeCheck , a precedent was created and Oracle sued $ 150,000 for 9 lines of code, it would have requested compensation for the rest of the “stolen” code at the established tariff, so that the total amount of compensation could reach nine billion dollars.Nine lines of
rangeCheck code private static void rangeCheck(int arrayLen, int fromIndex, int toIndex { if (fromIndex > toIndex) throw new IllegalArgumentException("fromIndex(" + fromIndex + ") > toIndex(" + toIndex+")"); if (fromIndex < 0) throw new ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException(fromIndex); if (toIndex > arrayLen) throw new ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException(toIndex); } Google has published a statement in which it called this victory important for everyone. "Today’s verdict that Android faithfully uses the Java API represents a victory for the entire Android ecosystem, for the Java developer community, for programmers who rely on open and free programming languages ​​to develop innovative programs for users."
The litigation between Oracle and Google over the Java API in Android has been going on for six years . In 2010, the first lawsuit was filed, in 2012, Judge Alsup ruled that APIs are not subject to copyright protection at all, but this decision was overturned in the Court of Appeal. Now the jury approved another option for defending against Oracle claims: Android’s programming interfaces have been described as an example of fair use of Java code.
Programmer Dan Bornstein, who testified at the trial, called the Dalvik virtual machine on behalf of a small fishing village in Iceland. Photo: Dan Bornstein
From the point of view of free software advocates, this is not a very good option, because fair use still implies that copyright laws are indeed applicable to the Java API. In fact, they should not be subject to copyright at all, as Judge Alsup in 2012 argued in detail. But it's better than nothing.
Oracle intends to appeal again.
“We are firmly convinced that Google has developed Android by illegally copying key Java technology in order to quickly enter the mobile device market. Oracle started this lawsuit to stop Google’s illegal activities. We believe that there are numerous grounds for filing an appeal, and we plan to return this case to the federal district court for appeal, ”said Dorian Daley, Oracle's chief lawyer.
"They copied 11,500 lines of code," said Oracle attorney Peter Bicks (Peter Bicks) in the last word before the verdict. - This is not discussed. They took our code, copied it, and pasted it directly into Android. ”
Representatives of Google responded that the Java programming language has always been “free and open” to use - this also applies to the re-implementation of the Java API. One of the witnesses at the trial was the executive director of Sun Microsystems, which developed Java. This company bought Oracle in 2009. He recognized Android as a legitimate, competitive product.
Oracle Executive Director Larry Ellison first welcomed the appearance of Android, but “changed his mind when he tried to use Java for his smartphone and failed,” Google lawyer Robert Van Nest told the jury.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/394663/
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