My Answers to HWcase1, Q1

[ethicsincompsci]

Q1. Prepare case notes on an ethics case related to intellectual property. An ethics case is an example, event, experience, legal case, medical case, and so on from real life, a movie, your imagination, and so on, which has some ethics related aspects to consider. Post your notes to your blog. Your notes should include the following.

• A link or other citation to the case you are using, or if it is from personal experience, point that out.
• A list of 5 or more important facts about the case in your own words. You can refer to these as reminders when you tell your group members about the case.
• A list of questions (3 or more) that could get an interesting and enlightening discussion going if you were in a discussion group, or that you would find interesting to consider. See the “Questions to ask during discussion” tab on the course web page for some suggestions in developing your discussion questions.

Hint: To find cases to discuss related to the theme of this unit, intellectual property, you could for example do a web search on:

ethics cases

or use news articles, personal experience, things you found on the web, on paper, etc. Professional neatness and clarity of format counts!

• Add the following three additional questions to your list of questions:
  • What does virtue ethics say about this case?
  • What does utilitarianism say about this case?
  • What does deontology say about this case?

Answers:

Source: Google LLC v. Oracle America, Inc.




Five Important Facts are:

1. Google copied declaring code from Oracle's API, though they asked to use the API to begin with and Oracle declined.
2. While Google was trying to create the Android platform and make it free for developers to use, Oracle would make companies pay to put their software on their devices.
3. Congress pass a law saying basically that declaring code was copyrightable.
4. The courts decided that Google had infringed upon the copyright Oracle held, but needed to debate whether fair use came into play.
5. The courts decided there were 4 factors that could let Google off the hook in a fair use defense but that Google only had 1 out of 4 going for it and the others didn't apply because Google didn't change the code for a purpose other than what Oracle had created it for. Google didn't add anything to it to constitute fair use.

Three Questions to ask about the case are:

1. If Oracle made the API free for developers to use anyway, even if the software costed money, why is it such an issue that Google wanted to use it? Why not just let them since they asked to begin with? Instead they went to write their own and use the parts that developers were familiar with.
2. As a developer myself who has worked with Java and Android, I am curious what Google uses now since the courts ruled in favor of Oracle. Because while I have not used Oracle's API, I know that Android development is still extremely simple and that is one of the reasons Google wanted to use the declaring code to begin with, because Java developers of the time were used to the API calls used in Oracles and would make for more developers coming to Android to make more Android based content.
3. Again as a developer I would like to know how code itself can really be copyrightable. While Google did infringe for the declaring code, like mentioned in the court documents, a method or system can't be copyrighted. And with Google not taking the full code, its hard to say in our industry that taking only a part of the code is copyright infringement. There are several ways to accomplish the same goal in programming. So even if someone has the same idea as you they can take an alternate route to get there. That doesn't mean you can declare copyright on that. I know the case focused mainly on the declaring code itself since that was copied verbatim, but its still a bit iffy of a case if you ask me. To me that's like saying 2 chocolate cakes from 2 different bakeries are the same cake. Both bakeries will have their own recipes, their own cook times, their own way of doing it. The product is still different even if the idea is the same.

What does virtue ethics say about this case?
I think virtue ethics would say Google probably wasn't ethical since they asked permission first and were denied, so they decided to just copy it instead.

What does utilitarianism say about this case?
I think utilitarianism might say Google was ethical in the case because while they did knowingly copy the declaring code, in the long run they made the Android platform free for developers to use and put on devices as well as keeping it Open Source so that anyone could use it to create something of their own. That opens a lot more doors for developers around the world and helps encourage IP creation.

What does deontology say about this case?
I would say it probably would say Google wasn't ethical since they took some code and even decreased revenue for Oracle since they made their platform free and Oracle was charging money.

Comments

Virtue Ethics

[kayland_childress94]

I also believe that this was unethical on Google's part. They should not have used the software without proper authorization from Oracle.