Supreme Court Holds That Google's Use Of Oracle's Java API Is "Fair Use"

In Google LLC v. Oracle America, Inc., the Supreme Court of the United States held that Google's copying of roughly 11,500 lines of code from Oracle's Java SE Application Programming Interface ("API") was a "fair use" of that material and, therefore, did not constitute copyright infringement.

Justice Breyer delivered the Opinion of the Court, in which Justices Roberts, Sotomayor, Kagan, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh joined. The Court distinguished the interface code from the functional code developed by programmers, stating that the function of an API is to enable programmers to call upon prewritten tasks for use in the programmers' own software programs. The Court assumed the interface code was copyrightable, but found that the copying in question constituted fair use, concluding: