[License-discuss] Copyright on APIs

[John Cowan]

On Wed, Jul 3, 2019 at 7:06 AM Kevin P. Fleming <kevin+osi at km6g.us> wrote:

As a software developer I have a hard time accepting that designing an
> API is not a 'creative' process.


Oh, it is.  But lots of kinds of creativity aren't protected by copyright,
or aren't as fully protected as you might think.  Architectural copyright
in the U.S. prevents you from constructing a building based on
architectural plans (or on another building) without a license from the
copyright owner, typically the architect.  (The plans themselves are also
protected as images and text, of course.)  But it will not protect an
architect who designs a bridge or a dam, as they are not, per court
decisions, buildings.  And the functional parts of buildings are not
protected at all, nor are common architectural elements (scenes a faire)
such as domes, arches, towers, etc.  It's at least as hard to design a
plumbing system for a large building as an API, but there is no copyright
protection for plumbing.


John Cowan          http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
That you can cover for the plentiful and often gaping errors, misconstruals
and disinformation in your posts through sheer volume -- that is another
misconception.  --Mike to Peter
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