Comparative Analysis of Recent Change in Application Programme Interfaces

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Comparative Analysis of Recent Change in Application Programme Interfaces (API) Protection under U.S and EU Copyright

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The City and State

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ABSTRACT
Software protection has always been a contentious issue in the realm of copyright protection. The creation of software encompasses the collection of information from others’ works so as to create a new one; because of this, there is a thin line between infringement and fair use. Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) fall under the issues concerning the scope of copyrights when it comes to computer programs. These legislations are concerned with data and datasets specifically provision of legal protection and strengthening the rights of their developers. This research paper looks into copyright protection approaches adopted in the United States and theEuropean Union. The two approaches have been highly determined by two respective cases Oracle V Google in the United States and SAS Institute Inc v World Programming Ltd in Europe. As discussed, the European approach of considering APIs as copyright unprotectable is the most progressive and accommodative way considering the dynamic technological industry. In making APIs unprotectable, the law grants the software developers that capacity to be creative and innovate as they develop the existing APIs to create their own inventions.
Table of Contents
ABSTRACT 2
INTRODUCTION 4
Background Information of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) 5
Copyright protection on API Interoperability 6
The Problem Statement 7
Research hypothesis 8
Research Questions 8
Research Methodology 8
LITERATURE REVIEW 10
Copyright Protection of APIs: 10
Software Protection through Copyright in The United States 12
The Early Years of Software Copyright Jurisprudence 14
The Contemporary Software Copyright Era 16
The Present Murky State of Copyright protection of APIs. 18
European Community Copyright Laws 20
Software Protection through Copyright in the EU, 22
Evolution of software protection 22
Comparative Analysis Of Recent Change In Application Program 25
Interfaces (API) Protection Under US And EU Copyright 25
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 31
RESEARCH DISCUSSION 32
APIs and Copyright protection 32
Hypothesis 1: 32
Hypothesis 2: 40
Hypothesis 3: 42
CONCLUSION 44
BIBLIOGRAPHY 45

INTRODUCTION
In the realm of copyright protection, software has always been a contentious issue. The creation of software encompasses the collection of information from others’ works so as to create a new one; because of this, there is a thin line between infringement and fair use. Over time, software programmers came to note that their creations are frequently artistic, elegants and highly remunerative works and thus turned into Intellectual Property protection for the support of their commercialization and ensuring that they get credit for great efforts. Considering the previous lack of particular types of IP protection, the software developers turned to using copyright. However, this was an imperfect solution even if they presented a streamlined approach for protecting their artistic works. Therefore, copyright allows the protection of software in distinct ways for instance having the code protected itself by the copyright, or the graphic user interface (GUI) which is a determinant of user experience during interactions with the software. Nonetheless, the limits of copyright protection have become too conspicuous.
Copyright protection will protect the yield of human creativity when it comes in a fixed and tangible fashion. In actuality, the computer code had originally been denied computer protection as it was considered not creative or alternately , not tangible. Currently, software copyrights in the United States are considered literary works; a clear demonstration of a copyright law that has not been developed with software in mind. Recently, the Oracle v Google case entailing a battle on the extent in which the protection of copyrights allowed Oracle to dictate the utilization of Java APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) illustrates the severe limits of the present copyright law in terms of provision of suitable protection levels to computer codes.
For many economies, policy makers have identified the significance of copyright-related regulations as a tool to maximizing innovation and creativity. The legal copyright frameworks have been in existence prior to even the revolution of the internet. Currently, each analyzed economy has either amended, is in the process of amendment or will amend its respective copyright legislative frameworks so that they are updated as per the contemporary uses of technology. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was one of the first amendments in the United States while the European Union would adopt the Copyright Directive in 1998 and 2001 respectively. For the amendments, the main contentious issues included the scope of the copyrights, the limitations and exceptions, its registration, the orphaned works and their enforcement. Each country will hold their diverse set of views concerning the optimal solutions to the different fields that it has become virtually impossible to determine the optimal solutions to those that are not. Furthermore, these are not all the issues related to copyrights thus this fight is not close to its end.
Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) fall under the issues concerning the scope of copyrights. These legislations are concerned with data and datasets specifically provision of legal protection and strengthening the rights of their developers. In regards to software copyrights, the European Union believes in protecting the software’s source code. This is specifically the unique implementation of that function. The functional aspects such as the formatting of data files and the programming language are not offered legal protection hence Google would not have been in trouble in Europe. This allows programmers to continue to use the functional elements of other APIs within reasonable limits as long as the functions utilized are not reflected in the source code. In the United States, its position is that APIs are not precluded from copyright protection due to the mere reason of them being functional. As the Federal Circuit Court states in the Oracle v Google case, the plaintiff Oracle exercised creativity in selecting and arranging its method declaration during the creation of its API packages hence writing its relevant declaring code. To this effect, they do have protectable expressions that have an entitlement to copyright protection.
This research paper seeks to assess the two positions taken by the United States and the European Union when it comes to APIs and argue that the former needs to take the EU’s approach in copyright protection of APIs. This dissertation has been organized as follows: Chapter containing the background technical information on APIs, the problem statement, the research question and the overview of the methodology to be adopted. The second chapter will discuss the literature review on the topic. The third chapter is the research’s discussion where the author argues on the two region’s position on copyright protection and why the US needs the EU approach. Furthermore, the discussion will include several important litigation cases related to copyright protection of APIs for further understanding of the topic. A comparison and contrasting of the two jurisdictions will also ensue to determine the best-place jurisdictions before finally coming up with its final findings and conclusion.
Background Information of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs)
An API is a specification intended to be utilized as an interface by software components for communication among themselves. It could include the specifications for routines, data structures, object classes and variables. It could also take various forms such as the International Standards POSIX or vendor documentation as the microsoft windows APIs of the form of a libraries toi programming languages, an API is different from the Application Binary Interface (ABI) as the former is based on the source code while ABI is a binary interface. An example is POSIX being an API but the Linux Standard Base being an ABI.
Some of API characteristics include being language dependent which means its availability is through the use of syntax and particular language elements that make it more convenient for utilization. The fact that it is also language dependent means that it is written for it to be called from several programming languages. This characteristic makes the service-oriented API desirable as it has not been noun to a particular process or system and can be provided as a remote procedure call or web service. One example is nas website allowing the users to review local restaurants is enabled to layer the reviews of location maps obtained from Google Maps since the latter has an API facilitating the functionality. Google Maps’ API has control on what information can be used and how it is used by a third-party site. Notably, the term API could be utilized in referring to an entire interface, one function or a set of APIs that have been provided by an organization. The scope of an API meaning is determined by the context of usage.
APIs are a glue holding the digital world together due to its transformative power of connectedness. They are a considerable part of what leads to the connections hence the recent high profile cases in Europe and the U.S battling on whether copyright does arise from APIs, what it covers and what is not covered. The hooks and handshakes of a particular software will be in its API that allows other software to connect and communicate. As an interface, it bears several rules of conventions that should be compiled for the exchange and processing of information. Application programmers have the capacity to utilize functions of both the computer and its operating system without the need to directly track all details.
A consistent API will also allow the programmer to write an application on the computer confidently that it will run on another computer machine regardless of having distinct hardware. Their constant design enhancements are focussed in improving customer experience as they access, search and share information. APIs are ubiquitous meaning a user could log in to an I-phone or Android application through their respective facebook credentials and could share all kinds of information through the shortcuts created to connect to other applications such as Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Candy crush scores, Google Maps among others. The communication allowed by APIs is remarkably phenomenal thus its important function in digital transformation.
Copyright protection on API Interoperability
In the law field specifically on Intellectual protection, interoperability is concerned mainly with the ability of IT products to communicate information. The user’s perspective on interoperability is that the products or systems with this characteristic have the capacity to work together. Beyond the IT markets, an assurance of product compatibility with other brands’ products is vital in ensuring satisfactory operations within the competition processes. To the effect, interoperability is an obvious intrinsic value that is supported by the society. AOPIs have been known to lead to better interoperability within distinct systems. For instance in the health care systems, they allow the transfer and consolidation of patient information such that health professionals have constant access to it. The patients and medical professionals are able to implement measures for better healthcare since the easily available information will guide on the treatments, lab outcomes among other healthcare communications without the need of interacting with all medical professionals in time.
Notably, the most ex-ante intellectual property regulations related to interoperability are in the field of copyright law. Ideally, the copyright regulations are meant to provide market participants with precise indicators on the ability to access and utilize the interoperability information. However, this approach has delivered partially satisfactory outcomes. In Europe where the Software directive has been implemented, the law has indefinite language on the important interoperability issue and the judicial tools have been slow in providing the required interpretive rulings. Over two decades of having the Software Directive enacted, the Court of Justice of the European union (CJEU) imposed explicit bans on copyright protection in some software building blocks during the case of SAS Institute, Inc v World Programming Ltd. Programming languages and data formats were affected by the ban and also the court indicates that copyright protection was not to be provided to the software’s functional effects. On the whole, this pronouncement provided clarity to those emulating existing programs on the laga grounds in relation to their operations. This accrued legal certainty may bring in positive impact on competition within software markets. However, the EU law has still not answered important queries in relation to interoperability as demonstrated in the Oracle America, Inc v Google Inc case in the US.
The Problem Statement
The different views on copyright protection on API interoperability in the United States and the European Union create insurmountable barriers to entry and even harms innovation. Software Developers have to constantly be reminded that their actions will bear different legal outcomes if one is sued in the regions. Furthermore, they are also at risk of litigation cases that take up extensive resources that could be directed towards the development of new technologies and business models. The different conditions in the two regions create a multifront copyright war on IP protection to computer software that contain features that depend or generate from the network effects. A war that is played out on various markets will have most resources catering for this war rather than focussing on innovation.
The courts are facing daunting problems in the application of new statutes of technologically complex and dynamic industry. Finding the right balance to the fundamental limitations of the scope of copyright has been a problem that has constantly recurred in the courts from the 1980s. The United States and European Union are at different levels when it comes to copyright laws on the APIs. Nonetheless, the United States requires further legislative efforts that will create a comprehensive new framework to the country’s copyright laws. A more flexible and less technical law for all persons is needed as the current ones have not provided effective protections and the businesses of good faith are lacking a clear road mapson the matter. One significant issue that needs to be done is a clarification is what is under the copyright’s owner control especially in the digital era, the scope of their exclusive rights and any limitations. Notably, the EU has provided an approach that is effective and applicable in the United States’ copyright space for APIs.
Research hypothesis
Hypothesis 1: The implementation of the EU’s Approach on Copyright Protection for APIs in US will wipe out the challenges of infringement and breach of contract
Hypothesis 2: The US implementation of the EU copyright protection of API and SAS institute vs. world programming led legislation will have a greater positive impact on IT companies such as Google and Oracle among others
Hypothesis 3: The EU copyright protection of API and SAS institute vs. world programming is progressive and accommodative as compared to the US protection of API
Research Questions
1. Will the implementation of the EU’s approach on the copyright Protection for the APIs in the US wipe out the challenges of infringement and breach of contract?
2. Does the implementation of the EUcopyright protection of API and SAS institute vs. world programming led legislation have a positive impact on US companies like Google and Oracle?
3. Is the EU copyright protection of the API and SAS institute vs. world programming progressive and accommodative than the US protection of the API?
Research Methodology
The research methodology applied for this research will be the qualitative research methodology that is based on interpretivism and constructivism. The author seeks to understand the multiple realities and truths that people hold onto the subject. The research will seek to gain insight on the hearts and minds of primary stakeholders on the subject. Toi this effect, the collection of information will primarily focus on secondary sources of information related to the research’s subject. Google scholar was an effective database to peer reviewed journals and books to aid which are credible sources of information. After data collection, the information is analyzed through an interpretive phenomenological approach where the author critically reads the information to capture the information.after the data analysis process. Data synthesis process ensues which entails bringing together the findings and conclusions from. The data synthesis process is expected to finally inform the audience on the standing of the research’s report.

LITERATURE REVIEW
Copyright Protection of APIs:
According to Mittal (2011), software constitutes both literal and non-literal elements. The literal elements refer to the source and object codes while the non-literal elements refer to the programmes, sequences, structures, flow charts among others. These elements will collaborate to formulate a software that has commercial value. For instance, biotechnological software deal with fierce competition even with their short life cycles and a liability to be copied since it is considered the “read it all on the face” technology. The nature of computer software brings in two challenges: economic and competition. Therefore, aside from protecting the economic interests of the creator, software protection via a proper IR protection mechanism is deemed important to stimulate creativity, innovation and investments. The preservation of the investing into software products is a necessity due to the fact that the reproduction of software can easily be done through no cost. It is essential to have restrictions on copying and redistribution.
Notably, Mittal affirms the fact that various jurisdictions will have distinct views on which intellectual property mechanism should be granted to computer software. The two principal mechanisms being utilized for software protection are copyrights and patents. However, some sophisticated technologies wll be protected through “trade secrets”. Copyright is the most commonly used mechanism since code writing is similar to distinct literary works. On the other hand, the United States leads the pack of developed jurisdictions granting software patents. According to Mittal (2011), patent protection is in no doubt the strongest p[rotection mechanism since the criteria to be met is relatively stringent. For one ton to have copyright protection, the criteria followed is less stringent. To this effect, it is common to have patents protecting the inventions in computer hardware, the functional components, devices since the general criteria for patentability is applied. This criteria encompasses novelty, non-obviousness and utility. Conversely, software protection falls into a distinct category since the mathematical formula or algorithm are the considered elements in IP protection.
Jain (2017) describes copyright protection of computer programs whether source of object code through copyrights and patents. The author asserts that the reliance of the modern society on computer technology has prompted the award of intellectual property rights due to the inventive efforts used in their production. Nonetheless, IP rights being a recent subject has attracted extensive debate from national and international levels. Notably, copyrights have been the widely used method for software protection. It is only the recent developments in the cyberspace field that software protection is moving towards the use of patents. Jain indicates that the primary reason for using copyrights for software protection is in the simple procedure followed in protection. Copyrights will rely on formalities such as copy deposits as long as the work is original, tangible, and fixed rather than the underlying idea to the work.
Nonetheless, Jain (2017) argues that software protection still remains a young field making it difficult to determine any non-obviousness. It is challenging to define the proper level of ordinary skill. To this effect, copyright protection that focuses on protecting the programs’ literal expression, it eliminates the ideas that underlie the computer program which also have their distinct commercial value. This view of copyright protection has also been supported by Article 10.1 of the TRIPS agreement which states that the computer programs regardless of source or object code will need to be protected as literary work. Article 9.2 of the aforementioned agreement also states that the copyright protection should not extend to the ideas, procedures and operational methods.
However, the judicial approach has been shifting from this perspective to cause a fair amount of confusion. Citing various litigation cases, Jain indicates that that the ambiguous nature of the copyright law when it comes to software nas caused challenges since the legal community lacks adequate technical expertise or advisory purposes. For instance, a comparison of the cases of Wheelan Associates Inc. v. Jaslow Dental Labs (1986) and International, Inc. v. Altais, Inc. (1992) demonstrates the polarity of decisions yet they are referring to a similar law. In the Wheelan Associates case, the program considered was deemed to be not entirely original but still considered to be eligible to be protected by copyright due to its original structure and organizations conversely, then the International Inc case would have the non-original elements separated from the software since they could be protected by the copyright. It is these confusions that could have various legal systems consider software protection under patents due to its capacity to protect the inventive concepts. Nonetheless the legal community still has a long road to have many software developers patenting their products. This affirms the need to deal with the challenges related to software protection under copyrights.
As a stimulus of creation, agencies such as UNESCO, WIPO and the World Bank have urged countries to develop mechanisms for the protection of past and present creative works from any commercial exploitation. In this view, the use of copyright has intensified in software industries in the United States and Europe. As outlined in the Integrating Intellectual Property Rights and Development Policy 95, copyright protection has seen the development of software industries such as India. Nonetheless, the research insists on availing copyright protection of software from a commercial standpoint to ensure that the rights are enforced domestically and internationally.
Software Protection through Copyright in The United States
Research done by Landolfi et al (2009) focussed on the challenges and opportunities arising from the copyright protection challenge. The research first describes the copyright protection law covering softwares invented in the country. Copyright protection is based on the 1976 Copyright Act that grants creativity to its authors and stimulates innovation while safeguarding the interests of web users. Copyright protection is deeply rooted in the American constitution with the guidelines provided through the Congress enumerated powers. The 1976 Act has the rights of copyright owners and was also later amended to include copyright protection of computers and television. The United States also adopted the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in 1998 dealing with copyright protection of internet content allowing the latter’s development. The Copyright owner is granted five exclusive rights for their copyrighted works. These rights include; the reproduction right dealing with the the right to copy, transcribe or imitate the works in fixed forms, the modification right dealing with the right to modify the work and create a new one, the distribution right which is the right to distribute copies of the work, the public performance right and the public display rights.
One case that has played a significant role in addressing the subject matter to copyright protection is the Baker v Selden case. The Supreme Court indicated that copyright protection would only extend to the creative expressions of the works and not the methods of operation or functional xpressions. Other judicial sittings cite the principles in determining whether a particular work should be protected by copyrights of patents for their functions or methods. Baker’s case built the foundation of upcoming cases indicating that recognizing the exclusive systems, methods and useful arts that fall under the scope of copyright protection will promote the progress in science, competition and innovation within the digital market. The research also pointed out how Baker’s case did differentiate the use of copyrights and patents when getting protection for exclusive rights.
However, the country is filled up with numerous infringement cases and conflicting interests in trying to ensure IP protection while enhancing the rights to privacy, competition and freedom of thought. Landolfi et al’s research indicates that the existing laws with corresponding principle needs ro be revised so as to create real opportunities that will develop new technical solutions that will meet the interests of web users and content providers. The current forensic trends within the country’s digital environment are proving that there is a lack of particular regulations which will protect all rights without offending vans and also impair some of the regulations. Nonetheless, the recent litigation cases related to copyright protection could be considered valid foundations to creating new regulations. For instance in Germany, a case involving a non-profit organization, GEMA, focussed on protecting authors and granting them their administration rights would sue Rapidshare which is a web company for allowing users to store their files, and share them when needed leading to violation of copyright while receiving economic benefits. The court did rule that Rapidshare would need to remove all the copyrighted material from the sharing platform, control the content uploaded by users and keep track of IP addresses that have uploaded copyrighted material. This case became a basis of controlling violating copyrighted material in the country’s cases.
Conversely, a court in Minnesota would bring in another innovative ruling that opened up a new frontier to the campaign done by web content organizations against the peer to peer networks. The Minnesota court would revoke the ruling in the capitol records v Jammie Thomas case that ordered the defendant to pay damages to their illegal distribution of copyrighted material through a peer to peer application, the new ruling indicates that having content available on the peer to peer network does not entail them distributing them. The defendant, Jamie, would not be considered responsible for the downloads to copyrighted material dsone by the web users. This court would also ask the country’s Congress to modify the Copyright Act to avoid any future requests of damages. Notably, this illustrated one of the many challenges that are affiliated with software protection in the United States through the copyright mechanism.
Notably, the API Copyright War would be one of the significant challenges in software protection. As illustrated by Mennell, issues such as network economics and industry backdrop have developed conditions that have produced a multifront war on copyright protections for software that has features which create or depend on the network effects. This war has been playing out across different markets in the digital environment considering the many software litigation cases have encomoasses the elements of interoperabiliotu. The control to access features of software platforms brought forth extensive profits that justifies the expenses incurred uin federal copyright litigation. The courts faced extensive challenges in the application of the new laws to a complex and dynamic industry. In the first instance, the courts would struggle to find the right balance, the copyright decisions related to the Third Circuit in the 1980s would consider the path of software copyright protection perilous and a threat to the respective competition and innovation. The years that followed would have the federal courts reasserting the significant limits on the scope of copyright and consistently excluding any network features within the copyright domain. Menell continues to state that the confusion that was present during the 1980s in relation to the contemporary wave of litigation on API copyright seems to engulf the current software copyright protection. To understand this matter, it is hence prudent to understand the historical development of software copyright jurisprudence and the copyright legislation developments that followed.
The Early Years of Software Copyright Jurisprudence
During this time, cases relating to software copyright jurisprudence illustrated hiow having bad facts led to the creation of bad law. In 1992, the courts would come to appreciate the technical elements of computer programming and the works related to copyright law. The first major case would be between Apple Computer Corporation and its competitors who were offering discount “interoperable” Apple clones. The competitors had copied the plaintiff’s operating system na application programs. The competitors renamed the duplicated computer system as “Pineapple”. However, the competitors did not write the computer programs nor did they know the basics of the source code allowing Apple to factually prove the copying. The defendants argued that copyright protection was not extendable to the non-human readable formats of software (object-code) and the doctrine of idea expression impeded copyright protection on operating systems. They insisted that copyright protection should not bar their sale of computers that have the capacity to run programs written for Apple II.
Considering the extensive efforts Apple had put into the development of Apple II computer system, the bundled OS and application programs, the courts did not find it challenging to validate their complaint of verbatim copying of code leading to copyright infringement. The 1976 Act and the CONTU Report had provided clear direction for copyright protection in this situation. At the time, the cases were considered easy. However, the “bad facts” to blatant and cavalier piracy would cause the Third Circuit to surpass its jurisdiction in some aspects. In handling the interoperability argument given by the defendant, the court states that the total compatibility with an independently developed application program is an objective that is commercially competitive thus will not lead to a metaphysical issue of which ideas and expressions have merged, nonetheless, considering the two distinct programs have the capacity to achieve similar outcomes such as generation of protocols for interoperability- the court had no justification to make the expansive statement on the ths scope of copyright protection when it comes to computer program elements. The CONTU Reports had clearly indicated that a party has the freedom to develop a machine that can do a similar thing as it would in case it had the copyrighted work put in it but only through one’s creative efforts and not piracy. The verbatim copying of millions of object code would need the court not to handle the interoperability matter. The defendant had failed to explain the program elements that were protected by copyright and those that were not.
The Whelan Associates Inc v Jaslow Dental Laboratory Inc would be the next major software copyright protection case whose bad facts led to a messy consulting arrangement. The case involved the owner of the dental laboratory hiring a software firm to create a computer program that would organize bookkeeping and administration functions of the business. The principal programmer, Whelan, conducted interviews on the employees to understand the business operations then developed the program to run on the laboratory’s IBM series one computer. The contract terms indicated that Whelan retained the program’s copyright and will put his best efforts to improve the program while the laboratory accepted using its best efforts in program marketing. Rand Jaslow, one of the laboratory shareholders, would create a version of the program to run in other computer systems and Whelan sued for infringement of copyright. The evidence indicated that Jaslow did not literally copy the program’s code but an overall structural similarity was evident between the two computer programs.
Therefore, as a way to differentiate the protectable expression from the unprotectable part, the court stated that a utilitarian work’s purpose of function may be its idea and everything not considered necessary to the purpose or function is considered the expression of the idea. While there could be many ways of achieving a particular purpose, the particular manner selected is not necessary to the purpose thus making it an expression and not the idea. The court defined the idea in Wheelan’s case as the efficient management of the dental laboratory. Having the idea-expression dichotomy at the high level of abstraction does imply an expansive scope to copyright protection in case all implementations related to the idea are protectable. The court conflating the merger analysis and the idea-expression dichotomy implicitly permitted copyright protection on procedures, processes systems and operational methods that had been expressly excluded.
Notably, from this case, the court failed to handle the copyright protection for the interoperable features in computer codes. Its mode of analysis led to an expansion of the scope of copyright protection in all aspects of the computer programs. In case everything under the general program’s purpose was considered protectable by copyright, it is only appropriate to have particular protocols that are protectable since there will be numerous other methods to serve a similar general purpose of the program. This would bar any competitors from the development of interoperable computer programs and computer systems.
The case of the “rogue employee” involving Johnson Controls and Phoenix Control Systems would have the district court consludingh that there was sufficient basis to find a substantial similarity in the plaintiff’s protected expression. The Ninth Circuit indicated that whether the non-literal components of a program are protected relies on the circumstantial facts to the case. In this case, the components fell under the expression of the idea. However, their decision did not consider interoperability or APIs. It just concluded that non-literal elements to programs can be protected by copyrights if they constitute expression instead of ideas. This case failed to cite the Whelan’s dcase that has been decided over two years prior to its hearing nor did iot adobe the expansive analytic framework.
The Contemporary Software Copyright Era
Various commentators and other courts would criticize the Whelan idea/expression test and would develop other approaches to dealing with the scope of copyright protection which were better in line with the fundamental principles of copyright protection. The Fifth Circuit confronted the Whelan decision five months after it was made in a copyright infringement case. The case involved structural similarities in two programs that were made to provide accounting services to cotton growers including information on prices, availability and the means to conduct electronic transactions. The similarities between the programs were largely the standard practices in the cotton market which the court termed then as externalities which were unprotectable. Judge Learned Hand in the Second Circuit cuit would involve the “rogue employee case but focussing on the foundational principles underlying the IP systems tand avoiding the loose and expansive dicta. Overtime, many litigation would come but the courts failed to provide proper copyright protection to interoperable features and APIs.
In the passage of DMCA, the debate of interoperable features in computer software being unprotectable arose. Generally, Title 1 has prohibited the circumvention of technical protection measures that have been implemented by copyright owners in protecting their copyrighted works. There are several interest groups that advocated for an exemption to circumvention to allow the development of interoperable computer programs and devices. The Congress would oblige and state that an individual who has legally obtained the right to use a program’s code could circumvent the technical measure that can effectively control the access to certain program parts. This is done in order to identify and analyse the program elements necessary in the achievement of interoperability of an independently developed computer program from others. It also considers those interoperability that has not been readily available to the individual trying to circumvent to an extent in which the identification acts and analysis are not an infringement of the title.
This provision wanted to allow the legal software developers to continue to engage in particular activities in order to achieve interoperability to the extent that is allowed by the lake. The main objective is to ensure that the impact of the present case law interpreting the Copyright Act is not changed by implementing the legislation for particular identifications and analytic actions done in relation to computer programs. Considering the case of Sega Enterprises Ltd v Accolade, Inc, it clearly illustrates the objective of legislation in fostering competition and innovation in the technological industry. The congress knew in crafting the DMCA, it was expressing support towards the Sega decision and had identified its significance.
Despite the inauspicious beginnings, federal courts implemented a balanced framework to protect computer software from piracy and interpreted the idea-expression doctrine to allow the exclusion of copyright law from functional features to computer technology. The decisions that have been made have streamlined a subtle balance referred to by the CONTU report. The courts would come to appreciate that a contextual understanding of creativity is necessary. Generally, the programming of a computer may be considered creative without any questions. However, they may be protectable by copyright due to the functional traits. While designing an efficient mechanical machine is considered to be creative, the devices are not eligible to be protected by copyright unless its aesthetic features are separable from the functional attributes following the useful article doctrine. The gital machines have its code lines as their gears and levers. Therefore, the fact that computer software may be eligible to be protected by copyright, it does not allow the protection of functional features. The courts have recognized the fact that APIs have important functional aspects. APIs will serve in various contexts as the interoperability basis in computer technologies and the specific functional specifications compared to the implementing code in the software program which could easily be considered as its “methods of operation”.
Notably, the court’s plit decision in Lotus v Borland did leave some uncertainties but its resolution did mark the end of significant API copyright litigations experienced in the 1980s. Court of appeals that applied the precedential rulings in Copyright law’s limiting doctrines in relation to the software’s functional elements decline the doctrine applied by Apple v Franklin. Their dictum was specifically that the total compatibility with application programs that have been independently developed is an objective that is commercially competitive but does not enter into the metaphysical issues of whether merging of certain ideas and expressions has happened. The Whelan framework would also be rejected by courts outside the Third Circuit entailing the analysis of sequence, structure and software organization. Congress endorsed Sega’s decision to adopt the interoperability exemption provided by anti-circumvention regulations outlined in the DMCA. Addirional;ly, the unanimous ruling made in TrafFix Devices, Inc v Marketing Displays, Inc that was against protecting the functional features in trade dress. The court indicates that the utility patent law was the only regime that could protect functional features and courts need to be meticulous ro avoid an overprotection of intellectual works., by the start of the new millenium,. The first copyright war ion APIs had come to an end.
The Present Murky State of Copyright protection of APIs.
The fair use jury trial in the Oracle v Google case will become one of the most important computer software IP trials and copyright fair use trials in the History of the United States. However, this case would provide little clarity on the murky area of intellectual property. While Google prevailed in the case, the fair use decision ruling by the jury provides little precedential significance. The higher courts could even choose to leave the ruling intact but this will lead to other technology companies being left out to roll the dice when they bring in unlicensed re-implemented APIs in their platforms. Moreover, Google also faced rhge exposure to new Android versions that would implement Java APIs in the new items. The verdict in Oracle v Google’s case does not mitigate the risk of one being sued for infringement on copyrights. The proper and secure harbors would be to develop an independent platform or license the present APIs.
The recent federal appellate decision made by the Federal circuit in rejecting Judge Alsup’s API Copyrightability ruling is the most significant one to deal with APIs copyrightability. The proliferation of software patents has also seen companies widely using APIs having the capacity to pursue patents and copyright causes in similar litigation. This brings the Federal Circuit to an exclusive jurisdiction to hear the patent cases even when the respective patent issues have no appeals on them.
Despite the litigation and trials considering the Oracle v Google litigation in handling their matters, there is still a quelling confusion that surrounds copyright protection of APIs. courts have recognized the fact that fair use is a troublesome doctrine in Copyright law, legal advisors have been prompted to inform clients on the lack of a clear safe harbor in the re-implementation of APIs when they have no license. When a trial team is in a different context wirth complex facts, it is possible for it to find it very challenging when using the troublesome doctrines. Moreover, when resolving the fair use query using a simple jury verdict form, the Oracle case provided little light on reasoning on the jury’s decision. No formal factual findings have been provided and their decision contributes minimally to the understanding of fair use factors. These factors include the nature, commerciality and transformativeness of the copyrighted works. There is also no clear lining on how to balance in the context of new platforms building on and augmenting the previous API packages. All that is known is that Google’s specific re-implementation of specific products were considered fair use. Judge Alsup’s resolution on the new trial demonstrates how further development in an Android platform can avail a basis for new copyright infringement actions.
It is these uncertainties that make it very problematic for technological enterprises. For a platform to be viable and valuable, it depends on its critical ability to leverage the consumers’ and developers’ knowledge on APIs. Therefore, development of a new platform requires a proper planning and coordination in incorporating its design. The present status to the copyright jurisprudence of APIs does impede the liability of copyright infringement on a doctrine considered the most troublesome in the respective law.
Oracle v Google case and other litigation disputes relating to API left an unusual jurisdictional posture that implicates patent protection and hence complicating the API copyright puzzle. The establishment of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit by Congress in 1982 did not provide a review process for the Federal Circuit interpretations to the regional circuit law. Currently, the Federal circuit remains the only en banc process that is available to litigants. It would be proper if such issues would be presented to regional circuits for instance in cases such as Oracle v Google where patents have no function in the appellate proceedings. The reviews are only analogous to certifying a state law which is a question toi the topmost state court. Conversely, congress has not granted any authority for these reviews. This has led to the Federal Circuit having exclusive jurisdiction to deal even with the federal patent law cases to produce a dual body of regional circuit law, it is still unclear on the extent in which the respective decisions will bind the regional circuit considering there are no structural ways for the harmonization of different appellate interpretations with no available Supreme Court review.
Oracle’s case illustrated the “forking; of copyright jurisprudence in respect to the Ninth Circuit. While Judge Alsup put principal dependence on Segas decision in the Ninth Circuit that also rejected the Whelan framework, the Federal Circuit has also emphasized on the decision in Nintendo v Atari Games that predated Sega’s decision and builds an imperfect foundation to the decision made in Johnson Controls case. The technological enterprises have been left within a precise line of authority, a procedure to handle any differences except having interventions from the Supreme Court.
European Community Copyright Laws
As deduced from the research by Andrés (2006), it is clear that the European Union is one of the pioneers when it comes to the Copyright protection and software developments. Through the increased computer software development across the world, the European Economic Community has been able to retain its technological competitiveness through the necessary development such as the enforcement of the intellectual property protection of the software developed within the borders of its member countries. Due to the lack of uniformity in the appropriate protection from its member states, the European Union was prompted to hold a clarification meeting for the best interest of its member states. The “1988 European Community Commission’s Green paper” ushered a new world of intellectual property and understanding of copyright as well as the establishment of a directive council to govern and oversee the intellectual property issues arising. Through the proposal, the member states were required to be able to protect their literary and art works through the computer programs. Nevertheless, the degree of reliability and stability for the computer programs was much necessary. Under the general provisions of copyright, it has been possible to overcome the emerging challenges like piracy and violation of the copyright terms and conditions hence putting Europe on a glimmer of hope when it comes to copyright protection.
Subsequently, when it comes to the European Community Law, under Article 36 of the Treaty of Rome, the industrial and commercial property of the members is subject to protection by all the members . However, this treaty did not address the copyright protection but only trademarks and patents. Under the European Community law, the copyright law has two principles which it interacts with to bring out the needed clarification. This includes the “first-scale doctrine and the territoriality” whereby the first-scale principles deals with the right of the copyright owner of which the control of the property is exhausted of which it shows the general rule of the engaging disfavoring restraints when it comes to alienation. On the other hand, the territoriality principle does dictate that the protection of intellectual property is paramount not only on the national level but also under the international protection law.
As pointed out by Samuelson Svensson and Larsson (2012), in the European Union, the Council directive of the 1991 of the Computer programs legal protection was the continuity of the Maastricht Agreement 10 of which it allowed the lower courts to refer to EU laws on their rulings . As far as the Copyright and software protection was in question, uniform jurisdiction was much necessary among the European members’ states. Samuelson Vinje & Cornish (2012), continue to point out that before the declaration of the software directive for the computer programs, the member’s states had a difficult time dealing with copyright and trademarks cases. This was much experienced in Portugal and Italy of which the computer programs cases were the least unprotected and challenged in courts.
Under the software directive, it was agreed that all the EU members were required to be able to adopt the copyright protection of the computer software only as a “Literary work” which was required to be incoherent with the international standards. Nonetheless, according to Gonzalez (2006), this software directive was only protecting computer programs like programming language, manuals, operating systems (OS) but not the principles as well as the ideas that underlies that computer program. Consequently, the EU software directive opted to exclude the computer programs definition with the caution that the definition may be out of place at some point in development. Thus, the technological advancement in the computer programs was a great risk to the protection of ideas and principles pertaining to the computer programs. The computer programs are required to be “Original” of which it implies that the creator of the content or the author does own the intellectual property. Even though there has been increasing national and statistical disparities in the world, the EU software directive has remained solid over the years to protect the “Originality” concept of the computer programs.
The study by Kanwar & Evenson (2003), the software directive allows that the copyright owner has the right to prevent any use of his work without his consent. This is about the use and reproduction of “Literary works” of the developer. There are many types right when it comes to uses including the right to the reproduction, translation, public performance and also adaptation. However, Under the EU software law, the copyright owner’s right is limited in the sense that they are limited to the exclusive rights. This includes the limitation of the private copying, the decompilation and the back-up copies. Due to this limitation, the European Union copyright doctrine dictates that the computer programs that are established by an individual should be under the creator’s ownership for a period of 50 years after-which the owner can opt to renew.
Based on the study by Madhavi (2017), establishment of the Confederation of European Computer Users Association (CECUA) gave out a clear clarification of the appropriate forms of expression for the computer programs to be protected by both the states and the international community . It also stipulated that the “The level of originality” have to be specified when the EU member states are dealing with the copyright issues and cases. Nevertheless, the CECUA did push-forward for a weaker kind of protection to the software vendor groups. This is based on the access to interfaces and the protocols of which the protection is not clear. Moreover, by having the users with more rights and protection than the vendor groups, limitation of protection is likely to happen even to the owner. It was also required that the ownership of the custom and protection of the customer’s rights be vested in the use.
Software Protection through Copyright in the EU,
Based on the research by Andrés (2006), The European Union(EU) provides software protection, particularly to computer programs. Copyright, however, does not cover the functionality of a computer program nor the programming language. European Union also does not provide copyright to the data format in the files used in a computer program. The Law further denies copyright protection for intellectual properties such as scientific theories, ideas, and discoveries. The United states high court recently ruled the application programming interfaces as well as other functional computer software out of the cover of the copyright protection. The license agreement only allows the users to reserve the right to analyze and examine computer software and clone its functionality. The EU provides software protection through a “European patent organization(EPO)”.[1] The European patent organization has granted patents to about 35 percent of computer-related programs. This paper will cover the evolution of software protection over the year within the European Union and other regulatory bodies
Evolution of software protection
The European patent organization has been handling patent applications since 1977. The organization did not at first cover computer programs until ten years later. Based on the study by Geiger and Frosio (2018), the EPO expanded its jurisprudence to provide software protection in 1986. European patent organization had granted more than thirty thousand patents to computer-related programs by 2005. The organization has however made the change over the years to efficiently provide software protection to computer programs as well as expanding the jurisdiction in which it covers computer programs Geiger and Frosio (2018). The current status of European patent convention is that software is not patentable. The European patent office(EPO) on the other hand grants patents to the software by categorizing them as the computer-implemented inventions. The European Union(EU) has over the years partnered with other regulatory bodies to enact relevant laws that define software protection and copyright management. Andrés (2006) points out that the set regulations grant the owner of a computer program autonomy to share the functionality of as given software in his or her preferred method. Some European countries such as New Zealand and Germany have incorporated computer programs amongst patentable inventions.
European Union copyright protection
The European Union(EU) copyright protection outlines that data formats, and other functional characteristics can be copyrighted. The copyright, however, denies protection to the computer code itself. Article 52 of the European patent convention dismisses software and computer programs as patentable inventions. The article has however undergone ramification to include the protection of computer programs under the category of the computer-implemented inventions. According to the study by Andrés (2006), the European Patent Convention(EPC) acknowledges the programmers’ autonomy in running a given computer program. The owner has the mandate to observe, study, and test the functionality of a given program to decode the principles and ideas outlined by the program.
According to Ihalainen (2018), legislation reserves the right to “study, test, and observe” to the owner. European Union describes a reproduction of a computer program by the use of manual as an infringement of copyright. syntax, keywords as well as a combination of commands is not protected by the copyright. However, the sequence and combination of words, figures, and mathematical concepts are protected as intellectual property. The leadership of the European Union seeks to harmonize state legislation to provide legal protection to computer programs. The legislation tends to define the minimum level of protection given to computer programmers and their affiliated work. Member states, on the other hand, provide software protection by the use of copyright. The European further expanded its copyright protection to cover literary and artistic work during the Berne Convention. The United States also defines the minimum protection awarded on intellectual property through patents and copyright. The protection extends to other artistic and literary works including books, charts, and maps.
APIs and software protection
The study by Pedro Quintais and Rendas (2018) points out that APIs usually protect a software programmer from rewriting the existing codes and provide all the programmers with a pre-packaged declaration which enables them to write programs that align with other available applications. The API creates a platform for the Java programming language. Java allows the development of applications that are capable of running on different applications without the need of a programmer rewriting the code. An American court, however, ruled that the functional characteristic of a given computer program is not covered by the copyright protection. Many European countries such as France and Denmark have revoked license agreements for reverse engineering programs. Some other European countries do not provide patents for computer software and programs. European Union also does not provide copyright to the data format in the files used in a computer program. Geiger and Frosio (2016) contend that Law further denies copyright protection for intellectual properties such as scientific theories, ideas, and discoveries. However, the majority of EU members have amended their legislation to consider computer programs as patentable.
Top companies such as Google and Oracle have different perceptions of whether APIs can be copyrighted. The reproduction of a computer program is regarded as an infringement of the copyright by the supreme court established laws. The laws further protect intellectual property through patents as well as user manuals. The copyright holder has the right to run the program but is incapable of restricting other people from learning about the program. Nevertheless, according to Geiger and Frosio (2016), the copyright restricts other individuals from infringing the copyright by developing a similar program to an already established program. EU court, on the other hand, affirmed that computer codes can be copyrighted, but fails to protect functional names as well as data formats.
Based on the research by Geiger and Frosio (2016), copyright protection has been in the United States constitution for ages. Congress enacted a law in 1976 to cover the rights of an individual copyright owner and was later amended to protect computers and televisions. Copyright protection does not cover computer programs and other characteristic functionalities. The United States constitution further describes that the copyrights are reserved to the programmer who wrote the program down. For instance, in the case of Google versus Oracle which denied the entitlement to copyright protection. The API gives the programmer an autonomy to share their computational skills with colleagues and the general public in a method of his choosing. The study by Sganga (2015) shows that the application of the programming interface and the functional characteristics of a computer are described as not eligible for copyright protection. The law, however, allows the users to examine and clone the functionality of computer software. In the recent convention, the majority of representatives voted against the issuance of patents to computer programs. This shows that software-based legislations need to be taken seriously to adequately protect the rights of a computer developer to commercialize a computer program as well as share the program at will.
EU regulatory bodies have undergone many adjustments over the years to incorporate software and other computer programs as patentable inventions. The European court of justice outlined that data formats and application programming interfaces are not eligible for copyright protection. The United States Constitution reserves the owner of a computer program to share the functionalities of computer software at their will. The United States government gives protection to intellectual property through the issuance of copyrights and patents. The law, however, denies copyright protection to ideas as well as scientific and mathematical formulas.
Comparative Analysis Of Recent Change In Application Program
Interfaces (API) Protection Under US And EU Copyright
According to the study by Voorsluys and Rajkumar (2011), Application Program Interfaces (API) do offer the best offer to the customers when it comes to the customer interface as they interact with their provisioned services. Subsequently, there are a series of services that have to be dealt with as far as the program application is concerned. This includes the provision of the new hardware, monitoring of the available cloud services as well as the engagement of the engineers in the programming field . Firstly, there are the Control APIs which include the end customer to configuration and their improvised service to the programming world. Based on the Amazon EC2 information, it is clear that there are a multitude of the APIs which should be done in relation to the configuration of services.
This is based on the definition given within the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud. This includes the Internet protocol (IP) addresses, the monitoring of the specific programming instances, and the editing as well as the creation of the access control lists. As pointed out by the manager so the Company “Mashery APIs Company” that Data in the APIs are normally within the data flowing of which they have to do according to the provisioned service. Such kind of data are normally provided on the cloud users and those who improvise to access advanced kinds of data. This is an implication that this data has to flow from one person to another in a more improvised way. Based on the study by Stannard (2015), there is a high flexibility when it comes to the flexibility of the cloud APIs which might not be in question. This normally depends on the source of the provision as well as the source that has to be provided when it comes to the driving forces as far as the adoption of the cloud computing is concerned . Thus, there has been so much widespread consideration of the security considerations when it comes to the programming and interfacing of programs.
As deduced from the study by Vezzoso (2012), the security considerations have to be taken into consideration at any given time as long as there is malicious consideration. In this case, one has to consider the available EC2 customers and those who have been terminated. This is an implication that it will terminate the EC2 customers of which the data that is stored within the system is deleted hence bringing the breach of contract . The study by Pietraszak et al (2006), companies can be in position to reduce this kind of risk (loss of data) by taking the action of being inadvertently put in place hence making it one of the important strategies when it comes to the strategy management of data at any given time. Through the AWS console, it becomes possible as well as the API, it is possible to feature in the provision of data and things that are available in the world.
Through the Command Line interface and the AWS and the API, the United and UK have been able to protect their copyrights against the illuminating termination. This has been possible through the DisableApi-termination stuff. In this case, we are able to understand the consolation of the data submission to the system. Nevertheless, there is need to consider the important aspect of accident action when it comes to preventing the problems that come with the APIs. This is because of the fact that a simple mistyping of when it comes to the IP address implies that it might result in some kind of an unavailability at any given time . This is an implication that the provision of the service rendered has been compromised. This is attributed to the change of codes and the inability to attain the best prospect when it comes to the achievement of things in the technological world. This is an implication that the simpler fix of the course can be achieved and focused on when it comes to the demonstration and facing of the challenges in cloud computing.
Denicol (1979), points out that technology has become an integral part of human existence with uses ranging from the basic communication structures to more complex tasks in robotics and analytics for modern decision making. According to Kyle, Peck and Denise Dorricott, an average person interacts with a technological aspect approximately five times in a day factoring people in the rural areas . In an urban setting, a person uses technology every hour. The reason why technology is a crucial part of life is in its ability to save time, multitask, reduce human effort and the ability to reach an exponential number of people at the same time. For these reasons, coders have been attempting to develop new software and programs in an effort to make life easier and as such, technology is the most revolutionary concept known with an upgrade on a program being released or an entirely new code being developed every day.
From the year 2000 to 2003, users of technology grew two hundred folds with the scope of usage widening from the scientific use and social network to incorporate the commercial aspect where business models were constructed in an attempt to deliver content to end users. As a result, the structure and pricing of the internet and its access improved with the introduction of untimed, zero rated internet service provision and the optic technologies that made it possible to manipulate vast amounts of data at high speeds raising discomfort and uncertainty for content creators.
A broadband internet led to low cost technologies with higher processing power and space, easy to use software programs that perform sophisticated tasks which increased the number of potential copyright infringers whose identity would be hard to reveal. As a precautionary measure, the World Intellectual Property Organization {WIPO} set forth instruments and provisions that would protect content creators and provide a guideline as to how the growing technology field would operate .
The provisions were initially in operation in the US. UK and EU since these constituted the major consumers of technology. It forbids the reproduction of other people’s work, translation, adaptation, rearrangement, broadcasting and public performance of other people’s content for commercial purposes. Given that API’s are not physical commodities but intellectual properties, governments have been struggling to incorporate what is considered ethical or otherwise into law. Further, the rapid rate at which technology is evolving calls for alterations in the existing law which already has numerous loopholes in regards to technology, a concept that is difficult for legislators to implement. Samuelson (2016), states that the more advanced technology gets the more threats it is exposed to and therefore, the traditional methods of protecting a coder’s work like DASP, RASP and vulnerability scanners will not be of use in modern API’s. This is because; these programs offer protection from known patterns and signatures while modern API’s can show vulnerability by a critical analysis of logic behind the coding language.
The copyright issue on APIs has stirred chaos in the programmers’ world after Oracle sued Google for using its java code in its android technology. As contended by Pietraszak et al, (2006), in the US court system, Google won the suit with the court stating that APIs cannot be copyrighted. However, when an appeal was made in a EU court, Oracle won with the court stating that the functionality of a computer program, the programming language and format of data files to exploit its functions does not constitute an expression of the program according to Article 1(2) of directive 91/250. Under Article 4(a) of the same directive, it states that if a third party obtains the entire or part of the source code relating to data files and the programming language and create similar elements using the said code, under the law that would be classified under partial reproduction proving that APIs are subject to copyright.
This ruling has however been a cause for controversy as different people interpret it in diverse ways. The first niche views copyright protection to only cover the source code classifying it as a form of expression such that if one does not touch the code they would be outside the scope of copyright. The court also deliberately exempted the use of the term interface because it has a wide array of interpretations which would widen its scope in making decisions creating an ambiguous and confusing view.
The use of a source code once an individual created it is not really protected under API copyright creating a loophole in which hackers have extensively exploited. This implies that cases on infringement claims that are meant to restrict third parties from copying, altering or distributing the code will not stand in court since using the above argument, all which is legal. This further exposes the inconclusive nature of that ruling (Lwo, 2010).
The battle on copyright of API dates back in 1998 during the case over the hierarchy in spreadsheet menu command. Although the courts rejected copyright, the congress was able to draft the anti-circumvention provisions of the digital millennium copyright act of 1998 (DMCA). This protected the expressive and arbitrary aspects of computer programs but did not delve into the functional aspects of the programs. However, this fight was set in motion by the World Intellectual Property Organization with transitions ranging from the basic protection of copying of content by third parties.
WIPO has undergone a series of conventions in an attempt to perfect copyright conflicts since 1980. The first convention that occurred in Paris was aimed at classifying what was considered intellectual property and making a distinction from industrial properties in an area that contributed a high number of cases. The Rome convention followed and it sought protection of performers, producers of phonograms and broadcasting organizations from unlawful and unfounded suits. The Berne convention tackled protection of literary and artistic works, the meet in Geneva amplified protection from unauthorized duplication of phonograms with the most recent convention resulting into a discussion on copyright issues for the APIs.
In subsequent years the battles escalated to the IP software front with Microsoft seeking to curb competition for their browser. Battle sun Microsystems sued Microsoft for breach of contract and copyright infringement of Sun’s java software program that ran their browser which later escalated to an antitrust and patent infringement lawsuit with a settlement of up to $1.6 billion.
In the early 2000’s, API battles shifted to patent and standard settings realm after Sun let its java program run as an open source . Their aim was to allow programmers to use its code while ensuring that Java was able to interlope across different systems. The emergence of Standard Setting Organizations enabled other programs to be interoperable which reduced the monopoly that Java had. After Sun Microsystems was acquired by Oracle in 2010, it sued Google for using 37 of the 166 programming languages and declarations to build android. This case was more complex in terms of interface specifications than the earlier waves of cases that resulted in two courts giving different verdicts. Google acknowledged to have used java technology but did not seek to achieve complete end user interoperability but instead optimized java for use in smartphones, a stunt that raised the issue of the utilitarian nature of computer programming. It also used a more permeable licensing model than Oracle which exposed the java program to more threats like the surge in cybercrime in 2015.
The utilitarian aspect of using computer programming was to be determined using four criteria. The federal court stipulated that the intended purpose and character of use the program is to be subjected to should not be of a commercial nature. Second, the copyright status of the copied work, the quantity of work taken and the ripple effects subjected to the market have to be significant to be qualified as an infringement. Based on these arguments, the argument by Google on fair use of the code was disqualified given that it made a profit of $ 42 billion through advertisements using the program.
The most recent legislative feud in the technology industry started in February 2019 regarding the introduction of online police or link tax or upload filter as is commonly known. This battle is aimed to not only protect API but also the content that is uploaded in the online platforms. Tech giants like Google, YouTube, copyright holders and digital rights activists have been the most vocal players regarding the copyright directive. The directive was aimed to update the copyright law among the European countries for the internet age. The implication of this directive is that freedom accorded to online users will be severely minimized. According to Julia Reda, the directive creates a dark day for internet freedom. However, Andrus Ansip the vice president of the European commission stated that it was a progressive move that would unite the digital market in Europe while at the same time protecting the creativity of coders and programmers.
After this law was passed, a motion was tabled in parliament in an attempt to eliminate the Article 13 or the upload filter, an attempt by tech bigwigs to enable them to interlope different systems. This was rejected and the directive was passed on to individual states in order to deliberate on how the directive would be translated into law. In a nutshell, this directive will be able to filter out any content that is uploaded such that if there is similarity to a copyrighted work, then it will be pulled down and possible legal action will be taken. Subsequently, after the Brexit fiasco, it is clear that events in the EU influence the reaction of the United States. Advocates of the directive say it will balance the playing field between American tech giants and European content creators, giving copyright holders power over how internet platforms distribute their content. But critics say the law is vague and poorly thought-out, and will end up restricting how content is shared online, stifling innovation and free speech.
The newly updated Article 17 of the copyright directive, stipulates that platforms like google and YouTube have the right to stop people from uploading copyrighted items. This will greatly affect the creative fields like memes and parody since these fields rely heavily on imitation of other people’s work. This is to be affected by levying a tax for every copied work but however well-articulated these laws are they will inevitably initiate more trouble.The most immediate problem is the introduction of software that filters non original content which as discussed earlier opens up numerous opportunities for third parties to access private information. Although the law does not explicitly require use of such filters, critics point out that this will be the norm as sites attempt to avoid penalties. The ripple effect is that access to technology by ordinary users will be expensive, a move that will reinforce the dominance of big tech industries, making the technology market negatively skewed in an oligopolistic market.
API war on copyright issues is an exponential thread that requires governments and individual program developers to take responsibility in ensuring that they put in all the relevant measures to protect their work. In future, Programmers should realize that most of the work along protection of their intellectual property falls on them since the law will inevitably take longer to catch up to the trends in technology. Investment in better software that wades off unauthorized users should be of paramount consideration if the coders wish to maintain autonomy over their source code.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The research methodology used in this research is the systematic review and meta-analysis of the previously available research materials which is based not only on interpretivism but also constructivist approaches. The systematic review of the study shows that there is an encouragement of all the datasets available to make a thoughtful and prudent conclusion of the paper. As far as the topic “Comparative Analysis of Recent Change in Application Programme Interfaces (API) Protection under U.S and EU Copyright” a stream of data is available online and also in scholarly sources. This is an implication that it is not a new topic in the modern-day world.
The research of the appropriate resources was conducted online through “Google” “Internet Explorer and Firefox” of which the reputable and reliable databases such as “Google Scholar, EBSCO, and JSTOR” were accessed. The study used EBSCO, JSTOR and Google Scholar because they were much credible. The key words used in the search include “Application Programme Interface (API), US and EU copyright, copyright protection, computer software, vendor documentation in US and EU and API Interoperability.” A total of 120 sources were accessed. After examination of the appropriateness, credibility and accuracy of the sources retrieved from the databases, a total of 60 sources qualified to be examined and analyzed to answer the research questions of the study and to prove whether EU’s Approach on Copyright Protection for APIs is appropriate to be used in US to wipe out the challenges of infringement and breach of contract with the aim of saving the courts the increasing resources of the copyrights and infringements.
The data was analyzed by use of the interpretive phenomenological approach of which analysis of the data is done critically and then the judgement of the information is done accordingly. The analysis of the data which is reflected in the discussion section is based on the findings from the high number of scholarly sources used. The synthesis of the data and the presentation of this data is meant to not only inform the audience about the US and EU copyright differences but also enlighten on how they can be uniformly integrated with the aim of doing away with the existing copyright barriers in both US and EU.

RESEARCH DISCUSSION
APIs and Copyright protection
APIs usually protect a software programmer from rewriting the existing codes and provide all the programmers with a pre-packaged declaration which enables them to write programs that align with other available applications. The API creates a platform for the Java programming language. Java allows the development of applications that are capable of running on different applications without the need of a programmer rewriting the code (Mennel, 2017). An American court, however, ruled that the functional characteristic of a given computer program is not covered by the copyright protection. The court has further revoked the license agreement for reverse engineering programs.
Top companies such as Google and Oracle have different perceptions of whether APIs can be copyrighted. The reproduction of a computer program is regarded as an infringement of the copyright by the supreme court established laws. The laws further protect intellectual property through patents as well as user manuals (Klein, 2002). The copyright holder has the right to run the program but is incapable of restricting other people from learning about the program. Nevertheless, the copyright restricts other individuals from infringing the copyright by developing a similar program to an already established program. EU court, on the other hand, affirmed that computer codes can be copyrighted, but fails to protect functional names as well as data formats.
Copyright protection has been in the United States constitution for ages. Congress enacted a law in 1976 to cover the rights of an individual copyright owner and was later amended to protect computers and televisions. Copyright protection does not cover computer programs and other characteristic functionalities (Samuelson, 2012). The United States constitution further describes that the copyrights are reserved to the programmer who wrote the program down. For instance, in the case of Google versus Oracle which denied the APIs entitlement to copyright protection. The API gives the programmer an autonomy to share their computational skills with colleagues and the general public in a method of his choosing. The application of programming interface(APIs) and other functional characteristics of a computer are described as not eligible for copyright protection. The law, however, allows the users to examine and clone the functionality of computer software.
Conversely, the EU copyright protection case regarding SAS institute and world programming company. The European court of justice determined that data formats and application programming interface(APIs) are not eligible for copyright protection. The United States Constitution reserves the owner of a computer program to share the functionalities of computer software at their will. The United States government gives protection to intellectual property through the issuance of copyrights and patents. The law, however, denies copyright protection to ideas as well as scientific and mathematical formulas.
Hypothesis 1:
The Implementation of the EU’s Approach on Copyright Protection for APIs in US will wipe out the challenges of infringement and breach of contract
The European Software Directive
In understanding why the United States needs to implement the EU approach in its software protection jurisdiction, it is essential to understand the position of the European union in relation to copyright protection of APIs.
The primary protection of computer programs is copyright with Article 10(1) of the trips agreement indicating that whether they are in source of object codes, their protection is done through literary works. In the European union, this has been reflected through its Directive 2009/24/EC or known as the Software Directive that deals with the legal protection of computer programs. In reference to the Article 5 and 6 of the Directive, users to the computer programs to perform particular actions without doing any copyright infringement. Therefore, they could observe, study, test a program, or even decompile to get access to the underlying codes so as to understand the program’s functionality or achieve interoperability for an independently created program. Furthermore, the law does allow patenting software. Notably, it is impossible to patent software “as such” in relation to Article 52 EPC in the section 1 of the Patents Act 1977. However, the patents are available through the “computer implemented inventions” such as the hardware-software interfaces, codecs or APIs. For instance, the case of Apple v HTC would present a software invention that is patentable specifically the manner of handling the multi-touch events in touch screen devices by utilizing flags regardless of the view being in a position to respond tpo over one touch.
The EU started its deliberations on the Software Directive in 1988 as they looked into establishing the tenets of copyright protection to computer programs. The respective member states would need to incorporate the Directive into their national copyright regulations. The initial position was the Green paper that had been issued by the European Commission stipulating that available options for software protection. After the consideration of comments from respective stakeholders, the Commission presented the proposed Directive in 1989 which implied that the program’s developer has the authority to utilize the program’s interface specifications. Furthermore, an expansive prohibition on reproduction was imposed with no exemption of reverse engineering at the time, various groups vigorously challenged the Commission, the respective parliament and the Council of Ministers to allow reverse engineering and exempt the interface specifications from protection to enable competition in the software industry especially against the dominant United States firms. Conversely, another side would assert that prohibiting reverse engineering was important in encouraging innovation and preventing any piracy done in disguise. The proponent of this argument, SAGE, would enlist support from the United States Trade Representative Carla Hills who also stated opposing the reverse engineering exception since it laed no role in advancing the interoperability objective. This is because the current trend towards the open systems was focussing to meet consumer demand.
Ultimately, the European Commission would prevail and the created Directive from the political process demonstrated a policy judgment that there should be no interference between copyright and interoperability. In regards to Article 5(3), a wide exception has been provided that is from the liability for “black box reverse engineering” operations. These include an observation of a program’s behavior , input/output running tests and line traces. The Directive’s Article 6 provides a narrow exemption for decompilation or disassembly as referred to by the Sega, Atari and other judicial opinions in the United States. The Article allows decompilation done for reasons of gaining interoperability when the information was not previously available and is also limited to the program parts needed for interoperability. Furthermore, the ultimate product from reverse engineering should be an infringement on copyright of the original product. As per Article 9 of the Directive, any contractual restrictions related to the reverse-engineering exceptions provided by Articles 5 and 6 have been voided. Also, Article 7 provides a reverse engineering exemption to the prohibition provided by the Directive on circumventing the technological protection measures.
Nonetheless, the Software directive has not directly handled the protectability of interface specifications. Instead, Article 1(2) has stated that the ideas and principles underlying a computer programs’ element including those underlying the respective interface are not eligible for copyright protection. Some scholars have indicated that the provision means that interface information needed in achieving interoperability needs to fall under the idea side located in the dichotomy of idea/expression. If not, then the detailed decompilation stipulations in Article 6 have minimal utility.
The case of SAS Institute Inc V World Programming Ltd would demonstrate how the Directive failed to handle the issue of protectability to interface specifications. For an estimated two decades, the matter has attracted little attention from the region’s courts. However, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) which is the highest court in the European region would rule that the program’s functionality, the respective languages and data formats which are formats needed for interoperability are not copyright protectable under the Software Directive. The ruling given in May, 2012 would handle an array of important legal issues relating to the object and scope of copyright protection in the European Union. It extended its relevance beyond the matters related to interoperability.
SAS Institute Inc V World Programming Ltd
The European Union(EU) copyright protection outlines that data formats, and other functional characteristics can be copyrighted. The copyright, however, denies protection to the computer code itself. a case was presented at the ECJ court to regard the extension of copyright protection. SAS institute wants to retain the rights of a computer program that allows an individual user to run scripts in a specific programming language developed by SAS (Crews, 2020). World programming company(WPL), on the other hand, developed a computer program emulating the one developed by SAS. Generally, the world programming system has been designed in the SAS coding language.
The case involved the World Programming Limited (WPL) which was a company located in the United Kingdom seeking to compete with SAS through the creation of “middleware” software with an ability to run scripts of users that has been written in the SAS language. To achieve this, WPL would reverse engineer the SAS program and create its program similar to the SAS platform. SAS accused the world programming company of infringing on its copyrights. SAS sued WPL in the UK indicating that while the latter did not copy its source code, it infringed the former’s copyright through a replication of SAS programming language data and programming interfaces and the system’s functionality. The Software Directive had no form of clarity in relation to the scoop[e of copyright protection for these elements. The High Court of England and Wales would refer the case to the CJEU.
On their argument, SAS claimed that WPL breached the learning edition license by copying SAS manuals and using it to direct its programs. The court, however, ruled that structures such as data format, programming language, as well as the functionality of a computer program did not constitute the program itself. Additionally, ECJ ruled that an individual is the owner of copyright if he or she has a license for that computer program. The owner has the mandate to observe, study, and test the functionality of a given program to decode the principles and ideas outlined by the program. The court further concluded that an individual can load and run a computer, provided it does not infringe on the exclusive rights of the owner. This reserves the right to “study, test, and observe” to the owner. The law describes a reproduction of a computer program by the use of manual as an infringement of copyright. syntax, keywords as well as a combination of commands is not protected by the copyright. However, the sequence and combination of words, figures, and mathematical concepts are protected as intellectual property.
In May 2012, the CJEU referred to Article 1(2) of the Directive which states that the functionality of a computer program, or the programming language nor the he data file formats utilized in the computer programs for exploitation of functions are to be considered form of expression to program ad hence are not to be protected by copyright protection. The court stated that in accepting that a computer program’s functionality is to be protected by copyright, this would lead to a monopolization of ideas which is a disadvantage to the technological and industrial developments. The court observed that the primary benefit to protecting computer programs by copyright is that the protection will cover the individual work’s expression. It will leave others with a desired latitude to make similar or identical programs as long as they do not copy the protected expression. This would mean that the court did reach a precise similar conclusion to the courts in the United States at the completion of the first API Copyright War and the decision made in the Oracle case by the district court in 2012.
Furthermore, the CJEU held copies that were made as the program ran in order to observe that its operations were not an infringement of SAS’s copyright protection. This was done even though the license had prohibited the black-box reverse engineering. CJEU indicates that Article 5(3) was meant to ensure that ideas and principles underlying any computer program’s e;ement are not protected by the copyright;s owner through a licensing agreement. Additionally, the court cited Article 9(1) which indicated that any contractual prisons opposed to the exemptions listed in Articles 5(2) and (3) of the Directive are null and void.
EU’s Clarity on Programming Language and Data File formats
Beyond computer functionalities, the Court handling the subject matter of programming language and data formats did provide further and needed clarity in the matter of interfaces. The Court needed to decide whether these issues were protectable by copyright law and specifically is whether they were a constituent of a program’s form of expression. The Court indicated that the did not constitute an form of expression to the orgram and are not to be protected by copyright as per the EU software Directive. In reference to the Bezpečnostní softwarová asociace, the court indicated that it has not excluded a possibility of the SAS language and data file formats being protected by copyright under the general regulations. However, this happens only when they are the owner’s own intellectual creation. Nonetheless, specifically to the SAS programming language which has a functional element providing instructions given to the computer hence consistent words and phrases that are known to everyone and not in any way original. The programming language was hence regarded as comparabvl;e to an author’s language in a novel. Therefore, it is a means that allows an expression to be provided and it is not an expression itself.
The clarification from the Court’s verdict in SAS is based on the legal interpretation of the language used in the Software’s Directive which was a lesser clear language. In understanding this clarity, one needs to know that interface specifications are concrete parts of the code which ate in written forms. Additionally, there is still room for a programmer to choose from the functionally identical was used to formulate interface specifications but should meet the originality requirement stipulated in the Software Directive despite the numerous challenges faced during the process. Furthermore, the Directive has not stated that protection through copyright has not been provided to the interfaces . Notably, there are still a number of articles and recitals which would more or less promote interoperability.
In regards to data file formats, the court denied any copyright protection as per the Software directive. It indicates that the WPL had no access to SAS program’s source code and carried out no decompilation of the program’s object code. However, this was done in respect to the plaintiff’s program’s language and data files. Therefore as long as the programming language and data file formats are the respective author’s intellectual creation, then they can be protected as works under the general copyright regulations.
The Brain Teaser in the United States After the Oracle v Google Case
The issue of whether APIs have copyright protection arose in Oracle’s case involving a lawsuit between two tech giants, Oracle Inc and Google Inc. at teb time, oracle had just purchased from Sun Microsystems Inc a JAva Platform that allows software developers to write programs with an ability to run on distinct computer architecture types without the need to rewrite in each different type. Oracle has recently acquired its copyright protection and hence chose to sue Google for copying over 7000 lines of declaring code which was tre identifier containing the name to each function. Google had replicated the entire structure , sequence and organization from 37 Java API packages in the development of its Android Software. Therefore, a reproduction of both literal and nonliteral elements to Oracle’s program was achieved. Google decided to do this so as to permit the programmers to write programs with a uniform manner to call on the methods of Java and Android as to promote interoperability and benefit the public. However, Google did write its own implementing code which is the actual source code that defined the behavior to those functions.
This lawsuit created an array of decisions. The district court of the Northern District of Carliformua stated in May 2012 that the APIs could be freely used which was a decision praised by the programming world. In regards to the declaring code, the decision was based on the merger doctrine and the short phrase doctrine to indicate that they were not copyrightable. In relation to the structure, sequence and organization of the Java API packages, the court states that even though it was creatie, original and had a resemblance of a taxonomy, it was still a command structure. This was a method of operation or a system which are long hierarchies of over 6000 commands that undertake the predetermined functions. The command structure is not eligible to be protected by copyright. To this effect, the district Court states that certain elements that had been replicated by Google could be used following the Copyright Act.
Nonetheless, this case did not end here as the Federal Circuit that did not consider the interoperability inquiries reversed the verdict by the District Court by stating that the declaring code, the structure sequence and organization of the 37 Java API packages were eligible for copyright protection. The Federal Circuit stated that the District court had misapplied the merger doctrine and was mistaken in the application of the short phrases doctrine in respect to the declaring code. The developer needed to have called the packages any selected number of things and since Oracle had not troies to protect the short individual code lines but the 7000 lines of declaring code the the element combinations are copyrightable only if they arte original. The Federal Circuit further considered the structure, sequence and organizations of the API packages eligible for copyright protection as iof the work elements are to be characterized as methods of operation, then the element does contain an expression which can be protected through copyright. The idea of having a computer program only uncopyrightable when it undertakes the preassigned functions would lead to none of the computer programs being copyrightable which is a contradiction to the express intent of the Congress.
This ruling by the Federal Circuit prompted Google to petition it for certiorari but the Supreme Court would deny granting this request. The case would be remanded back to the District Court of the Northern District of Carlifornia in order to determine the utilization done by Google in case the protected APIs were permissible under the fair use doctrine. In May 2016, the jury of the District court made a unanimous ruling favoring Google. On appeal, the Federal Circuit that analysed the four fair use factors indicates that the sustaining the fair use defense is done in an action that involves copying of computer code. These four fair use factors include the purpose and character of the use, the copyrighted work’s nature, the used portion’s amount and substantiality and finally the impact of the use in its potential market. The court indicated that Google using the 37b API packages was not fair as a matter of the law. Nonetheless, everal cases that identified that APIs were copyrightable and made a conclusion that Google’s fair use was not fair use demonstrate an arguable conflict with other precedent circuits that were in favor of interoperability. In the programming industry, the decision was widely criticized as it created a considerable burden on the software development profession and also limited the innovation in this respective field which is a contradiction to the aim of intellectual property protection. As a matter of fact, reusing APIs is critical in allowing inetroperabilirt among the different software programs and permits the respective programmers to quickly build ion the work of another programmers leading to the development of innovative new software,
The Electronic Frontier foundation indicated that the freedom of reimplementation and the extension of the existing APIs has been important to competition and progress for both hardware and software. Therefore, an exclusion of APIs from copyright has been vital in developing contemporary computers and the internet. The decision made by the Federal Circuit in Oracle v Google case is hence considered a contradiction to the over time accepted p[ractive of reusing software within the computer industry. This practice provided various groups of commands that made it easy to implement typical functionalities. The decision threatened the creation of future software and also the resisting programs since their developers had reused APIs from distinct companies.
In trying to get a decision that would protect innovation in the computer industry, Google filed a new petition in January 2019 trying to have the Supreme Court review the vase. The Supreme Court is expected to listen to the case that has lasted a decade where Oracle is expected to argue that Google did not have a license hence it destroyed its market and several target customers migrated from Java to Android. APIs have been designed as foundational elements for building software. If one states that intellectual property and copyrights are not good for software ten they need to elaborate how the economy is expected to be created.
The United States Should Implement the United States Approach to CopyrighT protection on API
Therefore, the EU copyright protection of API and SAS Institute vs. World programming is progressive and accommodative than that of US protection of API. The US Copyright Law denies issuance of copyright protection for intellectual properties such as scientific theories, ideas, and discoveries. The United States high court ruled the application programming interfaces(APIs) as well as other functional computer software out of the cover of the copyright protection. The license agreement only allows the users the reserve the right to analyze and examine computer software and clone its functionality. A popular firm, world programming, created a clone meant to run a statistical package SAS scripts without modifying then codes(Espinosa, 2018).SAS presented before the European court of justice an argument that the copyright failed to cover SAS language and that the world programming violated the licensing agreement outlined in the SAS license while cloning the software.
This matter of copyrightability has an impact on all developers who have a need for hundreds of millions of APIs daily. The Oracle vs Google case is a precedent in determining how open-source software should be treated in regards to IP protection and what will be the effect on innovation. The developers are expected to be meticulous of their utilization of APIs and whether they do have the needed license agreements to use them in building interoperability interfaces between the distinct software and platforms. The Oracle case is among the rare cases where the APIs could be considered to be copyrightable due to Oracle’s perspective of Google not using the API’s fairly. Ultimately, it remains unclear whether the APIs are to be protected by copyright law or not and whether there is a need to attain more clarity on the issue.
Nonetheless, following the stance of the European Union following the verdict made in WPL v SAS case, it is preferable to have the API’s uncopyrightable. One way to understand this need is to understand the impact on the software developers for having the API’s uncopyrightable. Software points are vital parts in software and keeping them open does encourage competition within the industry of software systems. Allowing competition does encourage innovation to the provision of further features with a reduction in costs. The United State choosing to close this has only led to an incompatible island of computer systems which are unable to communicate. Subsequently, the incompatibility presents substantial barriers to any new competition which is detrimental to the industry players and its users. Users grant more value to software that can work together and even with the various software vendors having no interest in communication, there needs to be an encouragement for other providers to come in and fill in the voids, brining systems together needs the open interfaces such that the integrators could securely implement an interface that has communication links. In the physical world, the standard connectors are valued and while the software connections may be too varied to achieve a standardization, the copyright law is not the right way to add on more barriers.
Furthermore, the need for an implementation of interfaces does go beyond since the programmers normally need to implement interfaces that have distinct definitions from the codes so as to allow them to do their jobs. It is normal for them to need to undertake software modifications which were written in different libraries with the mindset of collaborating. The implementation of interfaces is also crucial for the testing phase in ensuring that they are working. Therefore, programmers in writing proper programs, meet the desire of users of softwares collaborating and also the desire of the society to have free markets characterized by competition and the copyright should not be used for APIs.
The declaration of having APIs protected by copyright means that each single developer is required to attach open-source licenses in the many lines of code in their distinct platforms. This becomes virtually impossible considering the many projects that a developer handles. The reason why APIs are considered uncopyrightable due to the many interoperable software functions happening on open-source platforms. These numerous activities foi not want APIs to be protected by copyrights. This is despite having particular licenses being issued to dictate who can have access to particular functions.

Hypothesis 2:
The US implementation of the EU copyright protection of API and SAS institute vs. world programming led legislation will have a greater positive impact on IT companies such as Google and Oracle among others

The implementation of the EU copyright protection of API and SAS institute vs world programing led legislation according to Article 17 of the copyright amendment act, content creators can sue anyone who attempts to copy part or all of their source code, replicate the code for commercial purposes, translate existing copyrighted work to fit their needs, adaptation and rearrangement of the source code in order to gain unauthorized access or broadcasting and public use of the codes for commercial gain. This stipulation is very useful as it ensures that the creativity of content creators is rewarded accordingly. However, in the modern day big tech companies like google and oracle stand to benefit the most for a number of reasons. First, programmers aim to collaborate with the companies in order to ensure that their work yields optimal results.
Given the big size of the companies’ influence geared by their endorsement indicates milestones for the developer. It has been a trend that tech companies endorse the startup developers in exchange of copyright over their work. This technically means that the companies are in charge of determining how the software developed is used. With the protection in the copyright amendment act, the companies capture an unrivalled market share. This translates to monopoly in the supply of the software which enables companies to make economically abnormal profits and a very high turnover rate. They’re software’s street pavement, or scaffolding. They make it possible to create products that customers can use wherever they need them.
Second, the tech companies will benefit from this legislation because it requires them to invest heavily on software that protects its users against malware and hackers. This will boost the confidence of more people who initially thought that use of technology was unsafe. The higher the number of users translates to more profit and positive globalization. Further, Article 13 recommends that tech companies like Google, YouTube and Oracle be responsible for the administration of the online filter. The implication is that copyrighted work will be able to maintain its integrity making the original programmers reap maximum benefits. As a ripple effect, these tech firms account for approximately 95% of the API copyright. The Oracle vs. Google case on copyright infringement led the federal circuit to set precedence after it decided to grant copyright protection to APIs.
This resulted in the players in the industry to examine the potential impact it will face in the face of copyrights. The argument on fair use that was put forth by Google in an attempt to make it legal to use copyrightable APIs was an affirmative stunt that has changed many aspects of computer programming. Since the technology world is fast paced and always evolving, the abstract filtration comparison test to test the copyright ability is a point of consideration within the supreme court. In a nutshell, the legislation has made clear the channels and arguments that the big tech companies should present in case of a legal pursuit which eliminates ambiguity and controversy in cases.
According to John Marshall, with the existence of broadband internet connections, it has been made easier for tech companies to collaborate a move that has provided better solutions to the taste of its consumers. Collaborations have been established since ruling like the Oracle vs. Google would not only lead to confusion about liability, but it could also threaten the software industry’s prevailing spirit of cooperation. In recent years, some of the top companies have collaborated in an unprecedented way to produce mutually beneficial standards and practices through projects like Open Policy Agent. In the marketplace for API-first products, these have helped pave the way for the sector’s long run of innovation and growth. If the experts are correct, making APIs copyrightable could encourage opportunists to exploit the situation and wipe out all the trust that’s been built in the business
Hypothesis 3:
The EU copyright protection of API and SAS Institute vs. World Programming is progressive and accommodative as compared to the US protection of API
EU copyright protection of API and SAS institute is more accommodative than that of the US because it incorporates many features that are aimed at improving consumer experience as well as protecting the rights of the individual programmers. The most commendable feature is the general statement of privacy. In the EU legislation, any firm that intends to release any software product for public consumption is mandated to provide a contract that assures the users that their details will remain private (Gong, Ellison & Dangeforde,2003).
The contract describes the nature of information obtained from the user, how the information is going to be used, whether the information will be made available to third parties and if not the measures that the programmers have put in place to ensure the protection of the information/ this is not the case in the US protection of API as here, the developers have the liberty to disclose information that is only important to them. In addition, the law in the European countries has a feature where they automatically collect information about their user including the address, IP address, domain page of the accessed website, rates charged and time spent on the pages. While this may seem like an invasion of privacy, this information is useful in data analytics and trend analysis in order to improve the sites (Zhao &Khoch, 1997). Further, it helps to tame hackers because having accessed these pages, anything unlawful can be traced to the perpetrators given that it is required of the programmers to invest in high quality surveillance software that ensures that consumers remain safe. While this is a mandatory requirement in the EU nations, in the United States, it is optional to provide personal information when logging in to a website and the only stipulation put in place is that such users will not be able to access offers, certain services and secure pages.
The assumption that the websites are protected is wrong as it is the reason why people in the US often face scandals of their private information being leaked. The technology world is always evolving and program signatures are not protection enough. Today users only need to learn the logic used in programming a code and manipulate it to discover loopholes that make it easy to hack. EU legislation on copyright is designed in such a way that the member nations are united as a community where they restrict international users meaning that the APIs developed here remain implying monopoly over their source codes. In the US they allow the interloping of systems where information fed in one country will be made available. By using a US based website, a person consents to the collection, international transfer, storage and processing of private information.
In the case of Oracle vs. Google, the US law passed that API could not be copyrighted even when the argument presented was irrefutable. By giving that ruling, it exposed the many loopholes that the law contained. This was a retrogressive approach since their argument was based on fair use. When the same case was appealed in the EU, the verdict closed most of the doubt that the previous verdict produced since it explained the context of fair use but the incorporation of the commercial aspect of API trade. Further, it established the copyright ability of API which has been the basis of solving numerous subsequent cases. Legislation on APIs should be very adaptable in order to accommodate the vast and rapidly changing tech industry. The EU copyright protection of the API and SAS Institute vs. world programming has evolved to fit the evolutionary needs of the industry. The US law should be more concerned on user protection instead of the commercial side because a good rapport with the consumers is the first step into ensuring long term flow of income. For this reason, EU copyright protection of API is more progressive that of the US.

CONCLUSION
It is evident that copyright protection is an important issue to both the United States and the European Union. These two countries have undergone an array of changes in their legislation in a bid to provide the best regulations when it comes to copyright protection for software. Notably, the two countries have divergent views when it comes to copyright protection for API interoperability. In the European region, the case of SAS Institute v World Programming Ltd would have the Court place explicit bans on copyright protection of APIs. The court indicated that copyright should not be availed for the functional elements in computer programs in which the APIs are regarded as one. Conversely, the case of Oracle America Inc v Google Inc in the United States has currently set the pace on APIs after the Federal Circuit indicated that APIs need to be protected by copyright. This Is because the owner of the technology utilized creativity in the selection and arrangement of its method declaration during the creation of its API packages leading to writing its relevant declaring code. To this effect, APIs have protectable expressions that have an entitlement to copyright protection. Nonetheless, Oracle has presented the case to the Supreme Court for further review of this decision.
An analysis of the different scholarly work on the matter, it is prudent to state that the United States needs to implement the EU approach in handling copyright protection for API interoperability. This is because their approach is an accommodative and progressive method in the computer industry. Software developers are constantly utilizing other individual’s work in developing better technologies. This is how creativity and innovation is built in the industry. To this effect, ensuring that they have the capacity to look into the functional elements of other computer programs and develop from there only increases their capacity to bring in better technologies. Copyright protection on APIs limits this ability as they will be in a constant need to have license agreements to utilize them while ensuring that they are not infringing on any copyright protections provided.
To this effect, the United States taking on this approach will have them achieving a positive impact on the entire computer industry. This is due to the enhanced collaboration achieved by the software developers. Additionally, more investments will be directed into other core activities such as cybersecurity as the developers are not worried of violating the respective regulations. Collaborations also ensure that the software developers are able to meet user needs since the current trend in any industry is ensuring that the consumer is getting the best quality possible in products or services.

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