[colug-432] copyright ...an API?

[Rick Hornsby]

I'm a little bit confused by the $9B Oracle-Google fight[1].  I don't understand how using an API is a copyright violation, which makes me think I'm missing some salient point here.  I'm not a fan of Oracle, but Google is big enough to handle themselves so this isn't an attempt to construct a defense of any bad behavior on their part.

If you build a java library, a ruby gem, or a perl module and license it for open use as Sun (Oracle) has done with Java (correct me if I'm wrong), how can you then turn around and sue me for using the API exposed by your library/gem/module?  If the Java code itself was copyrighted, say like a DLL from Microsoft might be, and I blatantly rip that off from you, copy the code, and include that copied library code in my own commercial product in clear violation of a *copy*right -- that's different, no?

To put it another way, if I make a hugely popular Windows application (the horror...) that makes me a bajillion dollars and it uses the APIs exposed by Windows, how does Microsoft sue me for a copyright violation?

[1] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/05/oracles-lawyer-grills-googles-eric-schmidt-on-the-nature-of-apis/