Amicus Briefs in Oracle v. Google and Microsoft's, as text ~pj

I promised last week that I'd do Microsoft's amicus brief [PDF] filed in support of Oracle's appeal, sort of, in Oracle v. Google as text for you, and I've done it, finally.

I say sort of, because three times the brief, filed by Microsoft with EMC and NetApp, they say they take no position on whether or not Google infringed:

Although amici do not take a position on the ultimate question of whether the software packages at issue in this case are copyrightable and whether any copyright has been infringed, amici urge this Court (1) to hold that the district court's copyright analysis was fundamentally flawed and (2) to decide this case in light of the settled copyright principles discussed below.

The brief opens like this:

This case tests the copyrightability of computer programs, specifically packages of source code that are part of the Java software platform used by third-party software developers to write applications for computers, tablets, smartphones, and other devices running Java.

Wait just a minute. That's somewhat misleading. This is about 37 APIs, or more precisely their structure, sequence and order, not about software "programs" as most people understand that word. To understand that sentence, you need to know what APIs are. Because what Microsoft is asking for is a ruling that copyright protects nonliteral copying:

Congress has determined that computer software is eligible for copyright protection. 17 U.S.C. § 101. Copyright protects computer software in several important respects. It covers the literal lines of code that comprise software, generally preventing their reproduction or distribution without permission from the rightsholder. But copyright also covers certain non-literal elements of the software as well. For example, the "structure, sequence, and organization" of a software product -- above and beyond the 1s and 0s that make up the program at its literal level or the exact words of the human-readable source code -- can, in some instances, be protected by the copyright in the work. As a result, copyright infringement in a software case can occur even when the defendant did not copy the underlying developers' code, where the defendant has copied some other, non-literal element of the software subject to copyright protection.

That is, of course, exactly what SCO was asking for, before it flamed out and fell into oblivion. SCO used the same law firm as Oracle, Boies Schiller, so perhaps it's not astounding that they raised that same theory of copyright for SCO, an adventure Microsoft and Sun (now part of Oracle) funded, and here it is again, this time in Microsoft's mouth. I'd like to correct several misleading elements in this amicus brief. And we now have all the amicus briefs as PDFs.