Not all code is created equal—at least not in the majority’s view in Google v. Oracle, handed down on April 5th. In this landmark 6-2 decision, the Supreme Court held that Google’s verbatim reproduction of approximately 11,500 lines of computer programming code from Oracle’s Java library was fair use, and so did not violate Oracle’s copyright. After Google v. Oracle, Sun may as well change its slogan to: write once, copy anywhere. Given the prolific use of APIs, programmers, developers, and others who want to use their acquired knowledge and experience with software interfaces in subsequent platforms would rejoice in the Court’s decision. They can now use APIs without worry. So long as a party can demonstrate that it has not made use of the “expressive” implementing code, and that its use has furthered the development of new products, then it may well succeed under a fair use defense following this precedent, even if the volume of code copied is significant. This opens the door to a much freer exchange of coding packages, making new product development faster and easier. One would expect to see more copying, more cases, and more claims of fair use. Lower courts will doubtlessly ponder this decision’s implications as they apply it to the never-ceasing tide of fights over the limits of the reuse and redeployment of software code. On the other hand, software creators may have lost what little protections they have on their software, which may—counter to the Court’s intent—result in less software innovation. The Court has somewhat sidelined declaring code as far as copyright protection is concerned, thereby de-incentivizing further development of code with perhaps better functional and organizational capacity than Java’s API because of the possibility of its “fair-use” by another company at zero cost or repercussion. Further, the Court may have declared that mobile platforms are both a distinct programming entity and a distinct market from desktops and laptops. Whether you side with the majority or dissent here depends, in part, on how literally you take the saying that a smartphone is like “a computer in your pocket.” In future cases where transformative use or market interference is at issue, this opinion’s strong language may serve as precedent for parties to argue that mobile technology is in a realm on its own. In any case, under this holding, copying the very building blocks of the Java API is, as it was, fair game.