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   From: invalid@dont-email.me   
      
   In late October, the Department of Justice filed a long-awaited   
   antitrust lawsuit against Google. Most experts agree that it   
   will continue under a Biden presidency—potentially strengthened   
   with additional support from several Democratic attorneys   
   general.   
      
   But there's another lawsuit filed against Google that has   
   already been litigated all the way to the Supreme Court—Google   
   v. Oracle—and it gets to the core of how the company unfairly   
   became what it is today.   
      
   When Google launched Android, it wanted to attract more   
   developers, so it used Oracle's Java software platform. The Java   
   application programming interface includes "declaring code,"   
   which enables developers to call up pre-written programs to   
   perform an array of functions. More developers building Android   
   applications would entice more phone manufacturers to build—and   
   more consumers to use—Android devices. And that would preserve   
   Google's data collection and advertising business as computing   
   migrated to mobile.   
      
   Google could have created its own declaring code. But the time   
   it would have taken for developers to learn the new code would   
   have slowed Android's rollout, and developers might even have   
   resisted learning it altogether.   
      
   Companies license code all the time, but Google didn't want to   
   agree to an Oracle license condition that would have required   
   Android to be compatible with Java. Google wanted tight control   
   of the Android platform.   
      
   Of course, Google is not required to accept license terms it   
   does not like. But it cannot reject a license and then use the   
   copyrighted material anyway. Yet that's exactly what it did.   
   Google copied more than 11,000 lines of the declaring code   
   without Oracle's permission anyway.   
      
   Google claims that its use of the Java declaring code in a   
   smartphone was novel. According to Google, that makes its   
   copying "transformative," which is one consideration in   
   determining whether potential copyright infringement is a fair   
   use.   
      
   But that argument is a red herring, wrong on both the facts and   
   the law. Google was not the first to use Java in mobile devices,   
   as many competing devices used Java (under license). And as the   
   DOJ's lawyer argued before the Supreme Court in support of   
   Oracle, copying Java for use in the mobile context is no more   
   transformative than copying a theatrical movie to make it   
   available over the internet.   
      
   The Supreme Court said in 1994 that in analyzing   
   transformativeness, the question is "whether the new work merely   
   supersedes the objects of the original creation, or instead adds   
   something new, with a further purpose or different character,   
   altering the first with new expression, meaning, or message."   
   Google didn't change the declaring code it took from Oracle. It   
   used the code verbatim, and for the very same purpose: enabling   
   developers to shortcut the programming of specific device   
   functions.   
      
   If the Supreme Court rules against Google in this clear case of   
   copyright infringement, the damages could be on par with, or   
   maybe even greater than, that of an antitrust judgment. But   
   whatever those damages are, just remember: it's only a fraction   
   of what Google should have been paying Oracle for years. And   
   apart from monetary damages, a ruling in Oracle's favor would   
   help address the fundamental inequity of how Google has built   
   its business—unlawfully profiteering off the intellectual   
   property of not just Oracle, but many copyright holders large   
   and small.   
      
   Neil Fried was SVP for Congressional and Regulatory Affairs at   
   the Motion Picture Association from 2013 to 2020. For 10 years   
   before that he was Communications and Technology Counsel to the   
   House Energy and Commerce Committee. He recently launched   
   DigitalFrontiers Advocacy, assisting clients on media, copyright   
   and technology policy.   
      
   The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.   
      
   https://www.newsweek.com/antitrust-lawsuit-least-googles-worries-   
   opinion-1548507   
       
      
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