A computer program is not a novel application of copyright. Patenting it is wrong. But a new program automatically has and should have the same copyright protection as any creative work.
It's no different to designing patterns for this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacquard_machine
Quote:
|
The [Jacquard] machine was invented by Joseph Marie Jacquard in 1804,[4] based on earlier inventions by the Frenchmen Basile Bouchon (1725), Jean Baptiste Falcon (1728), and Jacques Vaucanson (1740).
|
It's also abysmal that corporations usually own the copyright and not the programming team. The most famous writing equivalents would be Stratemeyer Syndicate (Hardy Boys, Bobbsey Twins, Nancy Drew).
Disney and friends, DRM, DMCA and weaponisation of copyright by Corporations bring it into disrepute.
Don't confuse it with Patents, Design Patents (UK Registered Design) and Trademarks. The USPTO has been broken since Edison.
There has been a lot of simply wrong comments about Java (which was and is free for the desktop, Mobile Java was a different thing) which Oracle was refusing to license AT ALL for Mobile! Oracle simply bought Sun.
A lot of FUD about copyright, which is actually really simple compared to patents.
Also APIs are absolutely not computer programs. They are
almost like book titles, which are not copyright. An API is the text to invoke parts of programs. The copyright part is the internal implementation. You can't execute an API = Application Programming Interface.
People have been copying them on computers since the 1950s!
See also
https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/..._case_opinion/
https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/06/xinuous/
https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/...ver_oracle_in/