&gt; This is actually what Oracle is arguing<p>Not at all. Oracle is arguing nothing regarding web APIs, and I&#x27;m arguing nothing about library APIs. My argument&#x27;s and Oracle&#x27;s do not overlap. Oracle is saying that library APIs are copyrightable, and I am saying that even if they are, web APIs cannot be.<p>&gt; You also can&#x27;t label APIs as &#x27;language level&#x27; either. It&#x27;s ridiculous.<p>You don&#x27;t need to label APIs in any way (and what you find ridiculous has little bearing on the law). The relevant question to this particular discussion is whether what you&#x27;re trying to copyright is a piece of text or not. A library API -- like all code -- is text. A web API isn&#x27;t. If there&#x27;s no fixed text to copyright, all other discussions are moot.<p>You could also claim that copyrighting code while not copyrighting algorithms is ridiculous because in your mind they are the same. However, as far as copyright is concerned, an algorithm can be described in many different words -- and therefore there is no fixed form to copyright -- while a piece of code is fixed, and therefore could potentially (and, in fact, is) be copyrighted.