> One question from a judge was that if “API is copyrightable” is bad, why didn’t we see sky falling in last 4 years since federal court decided so?
Which was a fairly stupid question from a Supreme Court Justice, because you'd think that they know that decisions of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on issues not within their special subject matter jurisdiction (which copyright is not) are not binding authority on any lower court, as the lower courts (and, in fact, the CAFC itself) are bound by the actual precedent of the regional circuit court (even trial courts in, in this case, the Ninth Circuit, whose law the CAFC notionally was applying in its Oracle v. Google decision, are not bound by the CAFC ruling, only by decisions actually issued by the Ninth Circuit or the Supreme Court.)
So there is currently no binding precedent applicable to any federal trial court that APIs are copyrightable, which is why the sky hasn't fallen.
You would think that, however much they might not understand APIs, Supreme Court Justices would be intimitately familiar with the appellate structure of the US federal courts.
Which was a fairly stupid question from a Supreme Court Justice, because you'd think that they know that decisions of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on issues not within their special subject matter jurisdiction (which copyright is not) are not binding authority on any lower court, as the lower courts (and, in fact, the CAFC itself) are bound by the actual precedent of the regional circuit court (even trial courts in, in this case, the Ninth Circuit, whose law the CAFC notionally was applying in its Oracle v. Google decision, are not bound by the CAFC ruling, only by decisions actually issued by the Ninth Circuit or the Supreme Court.)
So there is currently no binding precedent applicable to any federal trial court that APIs are copyrightable, which is why the sky hasn't fallen.
You would think that, however much they might not understand APIs, Supreme Court Justices would be intimitately familiar with the appellate structure of the US federal courts.