this post was submitted on 21 May 2024
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Hmm, you know, I even looked that up before posting, so I wouldn't be writing nonsense: https://www.wired.com/insights/2014/05/non-apocalypse-apis-copyright-fair-use/
But yeah, it would be weird for a court to make such a wide-reaching decision, if it doesn't have to. So, that source probably oversimplified that it's 'merely' an important precedent case...
Yeah as far as I can tell SCOTUS didn't even rule on the "can APIs be copyrighted" portion of the complaint. That was decided by the Federal Court of Appeals, with SCOTUS declining to weigh in, during the first phase of the case (after this ruling was decided, the case went back to the District Court to decide if the use of the copyrighted API was Fair Use). Then when the District Court decided it was Fair Use, the Court of Appeals overturned it, and then finally SCOTUS went back and declared the original decision correct.
Microsoft was among a number of companies that filed amicus briefs in support of Google's stance (this may interest you, @NateNate60@lemmy.world).
Tangent: when reading up more on this, I discovered that America's 7th amendment hardcodes $20 as the minimum amount to be guaranteed the right to trial by jury in lawsuits. The idea of hardcoding a specific dollar value in your constitution is just hilarious to me. According to this calculator that's equivalent to over $700 today; at the time, it meant "moderate-sized lawsuits can be guaranteed a jury, but not very small ones", but today every single lawsuit is likely to meet that requirement, no matter how small.