Supreme Court Underscores How Fair Use Promotes Creativity. Contrary to what some rightsholders claim, fair use actually promotes creativity, as Jonathan Band explains in his latest Project Disco blog on the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Google v Oracle fair use case. Band points to Justice Breyer’s comments that fair use is an “‘equitable rule of reason’ that ‘permits courts…

In policy discussions, rightsholders often claim that the fair use right, 17 U.S.C. § 107, undermines the incentive to create new works. The U.S. Supreme Court’s April 5, 2021 decision in Google v. Oracle, however, underscores how fair use actually promotes creativity.  The Court restates the principle that fair use is an “‘equitable rule of reason’ that ‘permits courts to avoid rigid application of the copyright…

Supreme Court Hands Down Decisive Fair Use Victory. The U.S. Supreme Court issued a decisive victory for fair use in its 6-2 ruling in the Google v Oracle case this week. Writing the majority opinion, Justice Stephen Breyer wrote: “To the extent that Google used parts of the Sun Java API to create a new platform that could be readily…

The software industry issued a collective sigh of relief after this week’s Supreme Court decision in Google v. Oracle finding that fair use allowed Google’s reimplementation in Android of Java declaring code. The Supreme Court’s first fair use decision in over 25 years and first software copyright opinion ever no doubt will be carefully studied by law professors and copyright practitioners alike….

TLDR: A Supreme Court decision yesterday means that startups and developers should be able to continue to use software interfaces, known as application programming interfaces (APIs), without facing liability for copyright infringement. Startups and developers routinely rely on APIs to create interoperability and compatibility between computer programs, and they had long understood APIs to be exempt from copyright protection. But a…

I’m happy about the Supreme Court’s 6-2 decision in Google v. Oracle, affirming that Google’s reimplementation of the Java API for Android was a fair use and thus not copyright infringement. Google and Oracle’s competitions can breathe a sigh of relief, since a result that went the other way could have seriously inhibited the ability of smaller companies and new entrants…

Today the Supreme Court decided the long-running Google v. Oracle copyright case, which began more than a decade ago.  Supreme Court cases of this nature often elicit horse-race coverage — who won, who lost — but today’s decision that reimplementation of an API is fair use will have a far greater impact on software programmers and developers than it will on either of the two…

In a win for innovation, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that Google’s use of certain Java Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) is a lawful fair use. In doing so, the Court reversed the previous rulings by the Federal Circuit and recognized that copyright only promotes innovation and creativity when it provides breathing room for those who are building on what has come…

WASHINGTON – Re:Create today issued the below statement following the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in favor of Google in the Google v Oracle fair use case:  “Today’s Supreme Court decision is a win for fair use, computer programmers and American consumers. The court makes it clear that programmers can use declaring code without permission as a fair use in…

What Would Changing The DMCA Mean For Startups? When it comes to proposed changes to our copyright laws, the harmful impact on startups is often overlooked compared to larger technology and content industry companies. In a new blog post, Engine breaks down some of the proposals, including mandatory filtering and notice and staydown, and how they would harm the tech…