On Monday, the US Supreme Court found Google right in a dispute that spanned more than 10 years with IT company Oracle. In 2010 Oracle had denounced Google accusing it of having violated the copyright rules: the accusation concerned a part of a code (over 11 thousand lines) that Google had used to create the Android software, the operating system used by approximately 70 for hundred of smartphones in the world. Oracle had asked Google for billions of dollars in compensation.
Google had set up its defense by appealing to “fair use”, a provision of US copyright law that allows you to legally use copyrighted material in cases where the purpose is information, criticism or teaching, without asking the authorization of those who own the rights. Twice the US courts of appeals had proved Oracle right, but on Monday the Supreme Court overturned previous decisions.
The code in question was that of the Java API developed by Sun Microsystems, a software company purchased by Oracle in 2010. The API (Application Programming Interfaces) are – simplifying – programming interfaces that allow you to expand the functionality of a program. In this case they were used for the execution of programs written in Java language.
