Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/18-956_d18f.pdf
Page Number: 2

2 

GOOGLE LLC v. ORACLE AMERICA, INC. 

Syllabus 

author an exclusive right to produce the work for a period of time.  Be-
cause  such  exclusivity  may  trigger  negative  consequences,  Congress
and the courts have limited the scope of copyright protection to ensure
that a copyright holder’s monopoly does not harm the public interest.
This case implicates two of the limits in the current Copyright Act.
First, the Act provides that copyright protection cannot extend to “any
idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, princi-
ple, or discovery . . . .”  17 U. S. C. §102(b).  Second, the Act provides
that a copyright holder may not prevent another person from making
a  “fair  use”  of  a  copyrighted  work.    §107.   Google’s  petition  asks  the
Court to apply both provisions to the copying at issue here.  To decide 
no more than is necessary to resolve this case, the Court assumes for 
argument’s sake that the copied lines can be copyrighted, and focuses 
on whether Google’s use of those lines was a “fair use.”  Pp. 11–15. 

(b) The doctrine of “fair use” is flexible and takes account of changes
in technology.  Computer programs differ to some extent from many
other copyrightable works because computer programs always serve a 
functional purpose.  Because of these differences, fair use has an im-
portant  role  to  play  for  computer  programs  by  providing  a  context-
based check that keeps the copyright monopoly afforded to computer
programs within its lawful bounds.  Pp. 15–18.

(c) The  fair  use  question  is  a  mixed  question  of  fact  and  law.    Re-
viewing courts should appropriately defer to the jury’s findings of un-
derlying facts, but the ultimate question whether those facts amount 
to a fair use is a legal question for judges to decide de novo.  This ap-
proach  does  not  violate  the  Seventh  Amendment’s  prohibition  on
courts reexamining facts tried by a jury, because the ultimate question
here is one of law, not fact.  The “right of trial by jury” does not include 
the right to have a jury resolve a fair use defense.  Pp. 18–21.

(d) To determine whether Google’s limited copying of the API here
constitutes  fair  use,  the  Court  examines  the  four guiding  factors  set
forth in the Copyright Act’s fair use provision: the purpose and char-
acter of the use; the nature of the copyrighted work; the amount and 
substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work 
as a whole; and the effect of the use upon the potential market for or 
value of the copyrighted work.  §107.  The Court has recognized that
some factors may prove more important in some contexts than in oth-
ers.  Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., 510 U. S. 569, 577.  Pp. 21– 
35. 

(1) The  nature  of  the  work  at  issue  favors  fair  use.    The  copied
lines of code are part of a “user interface” that provides a way for pro-
grammers to access prewritten computer code through the use of sim-
ple  commands.    As  a  result,  this  code  is  different  from  many  other 
types of code, such as the code that actually instructs the computer to