Oracle claims APIs are protected by copyright, then copies Amazon's APIs
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Turns Out Oracle Copied Amazon's S3 APIs; When Confronted, Pretends That's Different (Spoiler Alert: It's Not)
Oracle has waged a many years long war (now heading to the Supreme Court) arguing that copying APIs is copyright infringement. Many people who actually understand what an API is, have explained why…
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@Mason_Wheeler IANAL, but I believe that hypocrisy is not an admissible factor in the legal system. In other words, a suit cannot be rejected simply by pointing out that the claims are hypocritical.
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@jinpa There's actually a few things. Estoppel means you can't argue something in one case (APIs are copyrightable) and argue the exact opposite (APIs are not copyrightable) in another. Collateral estoppel means that judicial determinations made in one case cannot be later contested in another related case (if the judge ruled that you lose because your APIs are not copyrightable in You v. Google, you cannot continue arguing that those exact same APIs are copyrightable in You v. Facebook). There's also the unclean hands principle, that you can't recover from someone's illegal activity if you yourself are engaged in illegal activity. Which ones apply depend highly on the pleadings of the individual cases or controversies.
