API might go down the road travelled by music in the last 25 years or so.

Music used to be a copyright on a melody. Arrangers/producers had nothing. Recorded music now has expanded to have "production rights". This a copyright on the way the released recording "sounds". The recent Ed Sheeran court case is a good example how weird that can get.

So APIs could be get there with the right crop of lawyers and court cases. ?