CRS Legal Sidebar – Google v. Oracle: Supreme Court Rules for Google in Landmark Software Copyright Case, May 10, 2021: “On April 5, 2021,the Supreme Court issued its highly anticipated decision in Google LLC v. Oracle America Inc., the culmination of a decade-long software copyright dispute between the two tech giants. Resolving what observers have hailed as the “copyright case of the century,”the Court held in Google’s favor, finding that Google’s copying of the “declaring code” of the Java SE application programming interface (API) was a fair use and thus did not infringe Oracle’s copyright in Java. As a formal matter, the Court’s holding was relatively narrow,concluding that Google’s copying of certain code from the Java API—what the Court characterized as “reimplementation of a user interface”—was a fair use under the “case-by-case” balancing of the statutory fair use factors. As a practical matter, however, the Court’s decision is likely to have major significance for the software industry, and may also potentially affect fair use for other copyrightable subject matter—such as art, music, and television. This Sidebar reviews the basics of copyright in software; the dispute in Google v. Oracle;the Court’s decision; and potential effects for computer technology and other copyright-intensive industries. It then briefly highlights some considerations for Congress…”