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Court Addresses Legality of Shrinkwrap Licenses
NullProg writes "This article here comments on a legal case where a shrink-wrap license may be binding. This a scary precedent for any developer who has added a feature to their software
already present in a competitors version."
I'm gonna have to stop contributing to Open Source projects then.
No, really.
If I could be sued for duplicating functionality which is present in open source products, just because I've seen the code, then I'll just have to stop looking at GPL'd code so I don't put myself into that position... For example at work I implement graphics pipelines (image manipulation). Since this is strongly related to, say, what Gimp does, this means I can't even look at Gimp source code because it'll put me at risk for some idiotic copyright infringement claim.
Sorry, Gimp project. I can't afford a lawsuit. I suppose I won't be able to contribute. I'm glad I've never looked at the Gimp code!
Sorry, no. Section 0 of the GPL clearly states:
The GPL assumes that since you have legally obtained a copy of the program -- recorded onto a hard disk, CD-ROM, book, or other piece of your property -- that you already have the right to use it. In doing so, you're simply legally using a piece of your private property, an action to which copyright traditionally does not address.
Well-established, constitutionally upheld, internationally valid, largely uncontroversial Berne-Convention-class copyright only affects you when you copy, publicly perform, redistribute, etc. a covered work. It is only the experimental, alpha-test-quality, constitutionally untested, and controversial DMCA-class laws which attempt to extend copyright from the right to copy and publish to the right to enslave and deprive the user.
So it could be claimed that he learned how to write his code from looking at the GPL code.
You can't copyright an idea. United States copyright law, 17 USC 102, states that "[i]n no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work".
Will I retire or break 10K?
I'm sorry, but you really shouldn't base your future code contributions on a badly worded sentence on /..
Copyright law, the only thing which the GPL covers, applies only to a specific work. Example: A painting of a sunset can be copyrighted, whilst "paintings of sunsets in general" cannot. It is not illegal to study a particular sunset painting, then create a sunset painting of your own.
What this means for you and your (likely to remain ) hypothetical GIMP-contributing aspirations is that unless you actually copy the code that implements the features in the Gimp that you like, you have nothing to worry about. "A filter that does X" is not copyrightable. Even conceptual details such as "array of function pointers accessed with menu item id" aren't copyrightable. Thus the GPL doesn't apply to them.
Unless you either can't help but copy the GIMP code (or are too lazy to do otherwise) you have nothing to worry about.
The enemies of Democracy are
The court followed the ProCD case, which directly conflicts with Vault v Quaid on the matter of whether state contract law shrinkwrap terms are "preempted" by federal copyright law.
Both ProCD and this court found that they were not because an "extra element" exists. Both courts got it wrong because they ignored 17 USC 117, which states that the "owner" of software can install it on a machine. In other words, installation is a first sale right by black letter law.
In particular, the negotiation that occurs during the contract of sale fully comprehends installation and use. The shrinkwrap offers nothing new to the purchaser, and therefore there is no "extra element".
Nimmer, the foremost authority on Copyright wrote a very long law review article specifically debunking ProCD's analysis on preemption. This court did a crappy analysis that wasn't even at the level of ProCD.