Supreme Court sides with Google in decade-long copyright battle against Oracle

On April 5, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a long-awaited decision in Google LLC v. Oracle America, Inc., holding that Google’s copying of certain portions of Oracle’s Java SE API code constituted fair use as a matter of law. While the Court noted that “in reaching this result, the Court does not overturn or modify its earlier cases involving fair use,” the Court’s decision nonetheless will have significant ramifications for the software industry and, potentially, for copyright holders more broadly.