$ 9 billion of Google and the software industry has just been saved thanks to a US Court ruling

The 10-year legal battle between Google and Oracle has come to an end when the US Supreme Court sided with Google with 6 positive and 2 negative votes. This ruling overturned Oracle’s previous victory with Google paying up to $ 9 billion.

The ruling argued that Google did not violate copyright laws when they incorporated Oracle’s Java programming language into its Android operating system. Along with that, Google copied Oracle’s code for Java APIs into Android, and this case kicked off a years-long lawsuit on reuse of APIs and pre-existing copyrights.

Earlier in 2018, a federal judge ruled that Google violated copyright laws by using the APIs and that their case was not considered “fair-use” or fair use. copyright that. But the new US Supreme Court ruling overturned this ruling, arguing that Google’s copying of Java APIs is seen as “fair use” and does not violate copyright laws.

This ruling not only saved Google a huge fine of up to $ 9 billion but also saved the software industry globally.

Before the ruling was taken, Microsoft filed an urgent petition asking the Supreme Court to side with Google. This letter partly shows the importance of this ruling.

” Developers rely on sharing, editing, and improving previously developed lines of code to create new products and develop new functionality. Both the causes and effects of collaboration. These developments all increase the need for seamless interoperability and information exchange … “

If APIs become subject of copyright protection, it will be easier for an original software developer to secure their users in a proprietary standard. That will create problems for consumers as well as make it difficult for startups to penetrate existing software markets. Therefore, many people worry that if Oracle wins this lawsuit, they will open a series of API copyright lawsuits similar to patent troll patent lawsuits over the past 20 years.

This is even more serious considering the prevalence of APIs in today’s software world when most applications, software services are built on one or more pieces of software from people. ahead. In the event that Oracle wins, the stacked licensing fees would create a huge burden for developers and consumers, and could also be the end of today’s software industry. .

Kent Walker, Google’s senior vice president for global affairs, called the US Supreme Court’s ruling “a huge win for creativity, interoperability and computing.”

Refer to TechCrunch