[TheDong]

Copyright violation requires copying, and independent derivation is a valid defense.

Patents don't require proof of copying and are always infringed, even with no knowledge.

If you wrote that API, and I wrote that exact same API without having seen yours, you wouldn't be able to sue me for copyright violation.

All I'd have to show in court is that there's a decent probability that I independently created the same API, at which point we'd both have full copyright over our own (identical) APIs, and more likely it would be ruled un-copyrightable due to being too trivial / not creative enough.

[tjchear]

Even if independent derivation is a valid defense, with Oracle setting a precedence, people would be taken to court all the time, and what is considered trivial becomes a matter of opinion. It won't be long before the whole situation devolves into automated takedown of GitHub code by big corporations.

Ideally, we shouldn't even have to go to court to begin with.