Google’s Supreme Court win could actually benefit the little guy

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Marketplace Tech with Molly Wood

Technology


For years, courts have been trying to hash out whether Google stole code from Oracle. Way back when Google was creating its Android mobile operating system, it decided to use some Java code that would make the system compatible with a lot of programs. But the Java code was owned by Oracle, which then sued, and it’s been in the courts ever since. The Supreme Court this week finally ruled that what Google did was allowed and didn’t infringe on Oracle’s copyrights. Meghan McCarty Carino speaks with Mark Lemley, a professor at Stanford, where he teaches copyright and internet law. He said the ruling means that a standard practice, of one company building on the work of another so that their products work together, didn’t get blown up.