US Supreme Court backs Google over Oracle in major copyright dispute

The U.S. Supreme Court handed Alphabet’s Google a major victory on Monday, ruling that its use of Oracle’s software code to build the Android operating system that runs most of the world’s smartphones did not violate federal copyright law.

In a 6-2 decision, the justices overturned a lower court’s ruling that Google’s inclusion of Oracle’s software code in Android did not constitute a fair use under U.S. copyright law.

Justice Stephen Breyer, writing for the majority, said that allowing Oracle to enforce a copyright on its code would harm the public by making it a “lock limiting the future creativity of new programs. Oracle alone would hold the key.”