Presented by Kyle Coleman
In an opinion by Justice Breyer, a 6-2 Supreme Court held that Google's copying of roughly 11,500 lines of "declaring code" from the Sun Java API, to build the Android platform, was a fair use of that material as a matter of law. The Court assumed for argument's sake that the declaring code was copyrightable and expressly declined to decide copyrightability, resolving the case on fair use alone. All four Section 107 factors favored Google: the declaring code is inextricably bound up with uncopyrightable ideas and lies further from the core of copyright than most programs; Google's reimplementation of the interface to build a new platform was transformative; the copied lines were about 0.4 percent of the API's roughly 2.86 million lines; and enforcement would risk harming the public by making the declaring code a lock on a tool that draws its value from programmers' investment. The Court did not hold that APIs are uncopyrightable. Justice Thomas, joined by Justice Alito, dissented; Justice Barrett took no part.
Google LLC v. Oracle America, decided April 5th, 2021. By a vote of six to two, in an opinion by Justice Breyer, the Supreme Court reversed the Federal Circuit and held that Google's copying of roughly 11,500 lines of declaring code from the Sun Java API, to build the Android platform, was a fair use of that material as a matter of law. Crucially, the Court assumed the code was copyrightable and did not decide that question. Here's the brief.
Oracle owns a copyright in Java SE, a platform built on the popular Java computer programming language. In 2005 Google acquired Android and set out to build a new software platform for mobile devices. To let the millions of programmers already fluent in Java work in that environment, Google copied about 11,500 lines of what the parties call declaring code from the Java SE Application Programming Interface, or A-P-I. The declaring code names each task and fixes its place in the API's organizational system. The implementing code, which actually carries out each task, Google wrote for itself. Google had first sought to license the Java platform from Sun, but the negotiations broke down, and Google then built its own platform.
The litigation was long. After a jury found for Google on fair use, the Federal Circuit reversed — twice. It first held the declaring code copyrightable, and then, after a second trial, held that Google's copying was not a fair use as a matter of law, remanding each time for a trial on damages. Google sought review of both determinations, and the Court granted cert.
Two questions were presented: whether the declaring code was copyrightable, and, if so, whether Google's copying was a fair use. The Court chose to decide no more than necessary. It assumed, purely for argument's sake, that the entire Sun Java API fell within what can be copyrighted, and resolved the case on fair use alone.
Section 107 makes the fair use of a copyrighted work not an infringement, and lists four factors a court must weigh. The Court also settled the standard of review: fair use is a mixed question of law and fact, so a reviewing court defers to the jury's subsidiary findings of fact but decides the ultimate question — whether those facts amount to a fair use — de novo. Doing so, the Court added, does not offend the Seventh Amendment.
The Court weighed all four factors, and each favored Google. On the nature of the work, it explained that declaring code is inextricably bound up with uncopyrightable ideas — the system of dividing and labeling tasks — and with the investment of the programmers who learned it.
On purpose and character, Google's reuse was transformative: it reimplemented the interface to create a new platform for smartphones and to let programmers put existing skills to work in a new environment. On amount and substantiality, the 11,500 lines were roughly 0.4 percent of the API's some 2.86 million lines, and Google took only what programmers needed to work in that new context. On market effects, the jury could find that Sun was poorly positioned to succeed in mobile, and that enforcing this copyright would harm the public. Java SE's market, the Court observed, was laptops and desktops; Sun's own efforts to enter the phone market had failed; and the copied lines drew their value largely from programmers' investment in learning the API, not from Sun's investment in creating it.
Taken together, the four factors led the Court to its conclusion.
Justice Thomas, joined by Justice Alito, dissented. He would have found infringement, faulting the majority for bypassing the copyrightability question and, in his view, distorting the fair-use factors. Justice Barrett took no part.
The decision rests on a narrow ground. The Court did not hold that APIs are uncopyrightable; it did not resolve copyrightability at all. It held only that this copying, on these facts, was a fair use. In doing so it recognized that fair use supplies a context-based check on the lawful scope of a software copyright, and it treated the reimplementation of an interface — reusing declarations so programmers can carry familiar skills into a new platform — as capable of being transformative. The Court was careful to say it was not overturning or modifying its earlier fair-use cases.
Google LLC v. Oracle America, 593 U.S. 1, decided April 5th, 2021. I'm Kyle Coleman. Thanks for watching.
These videos are educational case briefs, not legal advice, and watching them does not create an attorney-client relationship with the presenter or the firm. Case law and its interpretation evolves, always check a decision's subsequent history. Do not rely on these case briefs, but read the case yourself or have your attorney read them. Videos are presented via an AI avatar and voice clone of Kyle Coleman, created with his participation and consent.
