APIs cannot be copyrighted

A court ruled in the Oracle-Google Java lawsuit that APIs cannot be copyrighted. Previosuly a jury in the Oracle-Google case decided that Google violated Oracle's copyrights in copying the structure and naming convention of Java APIs for it's Android system.

Many in the web industry feared that such a ruling in favor in Oracle could give open source development and budding web companies greater headaches, as common architectures and APIs could be guarded against by copyright law. Should the initial ruling have remained in effect, it could have had far reaching consequences, and some could argue that it would hinder innovation within an industry that seems to be moving at the speed of light.

Specific to this case, Google basically developed API functions by writing it's own code and not porting over copyrighted code from Oracle. The fact that it preserved the naming conventions did not mean that it violated copyright laws. For some in the web industry, the preservation of such naming conventions reveals a desire for a 'common good' in programming that needs to be adapted by the larger community in the process of creating web standards, which only propels innovation and good quality code. The new court's ruling defends this idea that the repetition of naming conventions is not a violation of a copyright.

Google's post-ruling statements said, "It's a good day for collaboration and innovation."