Editing Software copyright (section)

====Fair use====
[[Fair use]] is a defense to an allegation of [[copyright infringement]] under section 107 of the [[Copyright Act of 1976]]. This section describes some of the uses of copyrighted software that courts have held to be fair.

In ''[[Lewis Galoob Toys, Inc. v. Nintendo of America, Inc.|Galoob v. Nintendo]]'', the [[9th Circuit]] held that modification of copyrighted software for personal use was fair. In ''[[Sega v. Accolade]]'', the 9th Circuit held that making copies in the course of [[reverse engineering]] is a fair use, when it is the only way to get access to the "ideas and functional elements" in the copyrighted code, and when "there is a legitimate reason for seeking such access".

The [[Supreme Court of the United States|Supreme Court]] ruled in ''[[Google LLC v. Oracle America, Inc.]]'' (2021) that the reuse of [[application programming interfaces]] (APIs) including representative [[source code]] can be transformative and fall within fair use, though did not rule if such APIs are copyrightable.<ref>{{cite web | url = https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/05/tech/google-oracle-supreme-court-ruling/index.html | title = Supreme Court hands Google a victory in a multibillion-dollar case against Oracle | first = Brian | last = Fung |date = April 5, 2021 | accessdate = April 5, 2021 | publisher = [[CNN]] }}</ref>