The U.S. Federal Court of Appeals reversed the finding of the lower district court which had decided that Google’s use of Java’s API package was not infringement. The appeals court found that the Java APIs are indeed subject to copyright protection due to their structure, sequence and organization. Google is still claiming fair use but per the Court of Appeals they are guilty of infringing on Oracle’s copyright. The EFF fears that this decision against Google will encourage other copyright infringement suits against a variety of software developers. Software vendors are set to strengthen the controls for developers in order to maintain their standards and cross-compatibility through the licensing process.
This battle over copyright between Google and Oracle began in 2010 and seems to have ended as of today. However, it’s not quite over since it is still to be decided if Google can claim “fair use” as a defense.
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