My fiancé was in there. She said it was surreal.[^comp] Not mentioned in the Above the Law article is that the large metal doors in the warehouse-like building they take the exam were shaking and clanging due to high winds in the area. Good times all around.
[^comp]: Thankfully, her computer lasted through the whole thing.
I’ll be buying this.
I’m adding this to my form file.
I’ve seen recent postings from [John Gruber](http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/07/19/schumer-ebooks) and [David Sparks](http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/07/senator-says-apple-e-books-suit-could-wipe-out-the-publishing-industry/), critizing the DOJ’s antitrust case against Apple and book publishers. These posts from Mr. Gruber and Mr. Sparks seem, however, to ignore how antitrust law actually works. One of the things antitrust laws prohibit is companies from holding clandestine meetings to agree on a pricing strategy for the whole industry. That is exactly what the book publishers are accused of doing in this case. Mr. Gruber and Mr. Sparks can try to make the argument that the current situation is *better* for consumers,[^ppfix] but they should not criticize the DOJ for filing a complaint against companies whose alleged conduct is prohibited by antitrust statutes.
[^ppfix]: Though that argument is an uphill battle when most eBooks have increased in price by 2-3 dollars per book since Apple got involved.
The recent *Google v. Oracle* trial was watched closely by both software developers and copyright lawyers. Since I have have spent time in both of those worlds, I took a particularly keen interest on the proceedings. The first major decision made by the jury in the case was whether or not Google had infringed Oracle’s copyrights on the Java APIs, assuming that Oracle could in fact copyright such APIs. Though the jury found infringement by Google, the more important decision came from Judge Alsup a few days ago: APIs themselves are not copyrightable. A few weeks ago, the [Electronic Frontier Foundation](http://www.eff.org) put up an [excellent rundown of why APIs should not be copyrightable](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/05/oracle-v-google-and-dangerous-implications-treating-apis-copyrightable) and Judge Alsup’s opinion agrees. Summaries of the ruling are available from both the [EFF](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/05/no-copyrights-apis-judge-defends-interoperability-and-innovation) and
[Tyler Ochoa, writing on Eric Goldman’s blog](http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2012/06/oracles_apis_ar.htm). Mr. Ochoa’s summary on the merger doctrine is particularly strong:
> Second, if there is only one way to implement a particular idea, procedure, process, system, or method of operation, then the merger doctrine says that the expression necessary to implement that idea is also not copyrightable. Judge Alsup relied on this proposition to hold that the declarations (programming syntax) for a particular method MUST be identical in order to function in the same way. The only thing that can differ is the name; everything else is specified by the requirements of the Java programming language, which all parties agreed is not copyrightable.
The full text of the decision is [available via the EFF](https://www.eff.org/sites/default/files/Alsup_api_ruling.pdf).