No Copyrights On APIs: Help Us Make The Case

Julie Samuels | Electronic Frontier Foundation | November 2, 2012

Earlier this year, we applauded District Court Judge Alsup for getting it right and holding that, as a matter of law, one could not copyright APIs. The case, Oracle v. Google, is now on appeal to the Federal Circuit, where a three-judge panel is going to revisit Judge Alsup’s ruling.

We’ve explained before why allowing tying up APIs with copyright protection would be so dangerous. This is what we said then:

Here’s the problem: Treating APIs as copyrightable would have a profound negative impact on interoperability, and, therefore, innovation. APIs are ubiquitous and fundamental to all kinds of program development. It is safe to say that all software developers use APIs to make their software work with other software.

 

We need your help explaining this to the Federal Circuit. Are you a developer? An engineer? Do you benefit from widespread access to APIs? We want to hear from you. Let us know (at [email protected]) if you have experience with any of the following specific examples...