Slashdot Mirror
Michigan Diagnostic Software Case Big Win for GPL
Pig Hogger writes "Many people claim that the validity of the GNU Public License has not been tested in court in the US. Well, it just had been, in Michigan, in a case that validated open-source car diagnostic software against the pretension of automakers who want to keep it secret. But don't take my word for it; read the story on GROKLAW." It's actually the Society of Automotive Engineers involved here; DrewTech (the developers in this case) nicely donated half of their settlement money to the SAE.
Well, the donated half the profits back to SAE (the defendant). Presumably the rest was for court costs/legal fees. If you read TFA, the lawyer for the plaintiff basically states this--the goal was not to win money, but to improve SAE's processes. There was no intent even from the plaintiff to punish.
Because it was settled and not ruled upon, there is no case law that other lawyers can reference from this outcome.
I don't think the GPL can declare any court victories until a judge actually rules in it's favor.
It is good to see that the SAE came to their senses, though.
Jerry
http://www.syslog.org/
Except that it is the GNU General Public License, not the "GNU Public License", which is what the poster was pointing out.
Each settlement is a win. When the GPL is fully tested in court the number of prior settlements in favor of the GPL will be evidence that the GPL is an accepted industry contract. When a style of contract is widely accepted, judges are less likely to break them. So even though this is not binding case law, it still helps in the long run.
http://www.windmeadow.com/
In fact, one might reasonably argue that copyright law should be altered to always allow personal use, in which case using copyright to protect against GPL infringement would be covered, while the RIAA suing their customers wouldn't. More to the point, almost all "fair use" falls into the category of "personal use", and most "personal use" has historically fallen under "fair use". The Audio Home Recording Act essentially set that as the standard when it came to infringement, so it isn't really as unreasonable as it sounds.
As for myself, I could go either way on the issue of personal use. However, I don't think that's what the RIAA suits are really about. I think that in those suits, copyright is essentially being used as a sledgehammer to stifle potential competition. By painting P2P in such a negative light, they reduce the effectiveness of P2P technology and the internet as a whole at allowing unsigned artists to be heard---something that the recording industry desperately wants to avoid, as it significantly weakens the relevance of their role as gatekeeper....
Sometimes coins have more than just two sides.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
From TFA...
PJ: Why did you donate back half of what you won under the settlement?
Eric: The reason for donation of half back is because the purpose of the lawsuit always has been to benefit and improve the SAE. It may have been necessary to drag them kicking and screaming up the learning curve, but my client has done so precisely because the organization needed the benefit of the learning experience.
The whole point is that DrewTech has been very generous to the SAE by donating 1/2 of the money back as a charitable contribution, to symbolize the educational benefit conferred on the organization (in particular, organization staff -- as distinct from the Membership, who mostly tend to "get" the GPL) through the mechanism of the lawsuit as a whole.
Those who would give up liberty in exchange for security and DRM should switch to Microsoft Palladium!
I thought that one of the important things to come out of the case was this:
:-) ])
The doctrine is now enshrined in 17 U.S.C. 102(b). The relevant section says:
(b) In 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.
A lot of people think that their ideas, procedures, processes, etc... are (or can be) protected by copyright. The answer here is - no. They can not be protected by copyright. These are protected by patents.
Tangibles => copyrights
Intanigbles => patents
(I don't know about anyone else, but I do get a lot of questions on this when friends/relatives/and other stranger persons ask me about copyrights. And no, IANAL! I just like to read about the law. [Surprised my own lawyer by how much I knew about the law.
Someone put a black hole in my pocket and now I'm broke.
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis