Last week, the Supreme Court of the United States voted 6-2 in favor of Google in a decade-long legal case stemming from Google's use of a set of Java APIs in versions of the Android operating system. This decision was undoubtedly a good one for software developers; it allows us to continue doing our job.

But why was this decision so important? Let's dive into this case, see the arguments each side made, and discuss exactly what the court decided.

The Arguments

In this case, Oracle argued that Google's use of the Java APIs in the Android operating system violated Oracle's copyright on Java. Because the Oracle owns the copyright, Oracle was owed damages from Google because they illegally used Oracle's property (Java APIs) to make a product that Google made money from (Android).

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