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.

Comments

Good.

[daveschroeder]

But remember, the GPL itself is not specifically "tested", per se, because GPL software developers assert them rights granted to them via copyright on an individual basis. This makes it a sometimes long and arduous process to assert rights and/or prove infringement, but hopefully more precedent will help.

Since the provisions of the GPL have been upheld in a case in Germany as well, maybe PearPC will be able to more easily defend itself against CherryOS, which has blatantly taken GPL code, without release of source code or attribution, from PearPC and several other GPL projects:

eWeek has a general overview of the situation:

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1775386,00.as p

Below is a comprehensive collection of evidence, which runs the gamut from CherryOS including original PearPC graphics, extremely unique strings and error messages, debug code from PearPC, the same unique MAC address as PearPC's default network adapter, shared specific functionality, including bugs, and so on:

http://www.ht-technology.com/cherryos-pearpc/cherr yos-pearpc.html

http://www.drunkenblog.com/drunkenblog-archives/00 0501.html
http://www.drunkenblog.com/drunkenblog-archives/00 0503.html
http://www.drunkenblog.com/drunkenblog-archives/00 0504.html
http://www.drunkenblog.com/drunkenblog-archives/00 0507.html

http://starport.dnsalias.net/index.php?show=articl e&id=348

http://forums.pearpc.net/viewtopic.php?p=16178#161 78
http://www.tliquest.net/ryan/cherryos/
http://dhost.info/kourge/en/projects/frauds/cherry os.php

Additionally, PearPC project authors are already asserting their rights under the GPL:

http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg _id=11116974

And a general compilation of some of the evidence so far against CherryOS:

http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg _id=11125509

Not a win, but a settlement

[suso]

Unless I'm missing something, this ended in a settlement, not an in court win backed up by a judge.

Re:Not a win, but a settlement

[confusion]

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/

Re:Not a win, but a settlement

[bear_phillips]

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.

Re:Not a win, but a settlement

[man_of_mr_e]

Not necessarily. Simply being a widely accepted contract doesn't mean the contract is legal. I'm not saying the GPL isn't, just that your argument is faulty.

As an example, Microsoft's OEM contracts were widely accepted. That didn't mean they were legal.

Re:Not a win, but a settlement

[johnnyb]

"Whether licenses add rights or take them away depends on your perspective."

Incorrect. It depends simply on copyright law. The GPL takes away NO FREEDOMS that are given by default by copyright law. Instead, it adds to them.

"On the other hand, people don't have the automatic right to distribute source or binary, so you could say that both the GPL and an EULA add rights."

Incorrect. EULA's don't generally give you a right to distribute source or binary. If you know of one that does, give me a holler.

By default, copyright allows you to (a) use your program for any purpose, (b) learn from it, (c) modify it for yourself, and (d) keep an archival copy. Most EULA's restrict (b) and (c). The GPL adds additional rights. That is why it is unique. If you know of an EULA from a major vendor that adds additional rights that normal copyright wouldn't give you, let me know.

Suing for damages? Inappropriate, IMHO

[goldspider]

Wouldn't simply compelling the defendant to release the code with the appropriate acknowledgements be more in line with the community spirit of the GPL? A monetary settlement seems unnecessarily punitive.

thank you very much... not

[advocate_one]

I wondered why it had gone extremely slow... by the way, the article poster has got it wrong. It's not a victory per se for the GPL as it never went to the finish, the two parties settled instead. However, it is possibly good news for those of us frustrated at companies tying up international standards with submarine patents and other IP trickeries... Microsoft watch out.

Re:Suing for damages? Inappropriate, IMHO

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

So why start a new project?

[chaffed]

Freediag is stagnant because people have lost interest. If they want to implement new protocols within the 0BD II standard they should pick up Freediag and continue the development. Freediag is almost completely finished the portability portion of it's development. It compiles under most operating systems.

I guess Yay! for GPL being upheld in court. Yay! For independent an DIY auto repair folks. However, bummer for a project that really needs some new blood.

I don't see anything for the GPL in here

[Qzukk]

Yes, the code was written under the GPL, yes the SAE did then take that code and start selling it as if they had written it and without the GPL, but it seems that the entire process was over whether the SAE owns their own regulations after the government steps in and turns them into Law.

The answer, as it was in the prior case cited, was "no".

It seems that the license of the software involved wasn't related to the case at all, other than as a "starting point" for the case to begin. If the code had been BSD-licensed, they wouldn't have been suing the SAE first. If nothing else, it simply indicates that you can issue a DMCA takedown notice for GPL'd code someone else is using without obeying the GPL license.

The Penguin has grown strong teeth, Robin!

[AtariAmarok]

"Sounds like the lastest idea for the next crappy linux game"

Or the plot for "Batman 6".

Re:Searched everywhere but Google?

[sjbcfh]

There are more than 300,000 pages referring to "gnu public license", and that is just in Google.

Except that it is the GNU General Public License, not the "GNU Public License", which is what the poster was pointing out.

Re:Okay, now it's official (slightly off-topic)

[dgatwood]

Actually, it's pretty easy to say those two things consecutively. One has to do with using copyright to protect profits versus people taking copyrighted material for personal use, while the other has to do with using copyright to protect people's right to personal use against a company taking the source code, changing it in non-public ways, and selling it for a profit. A lot of people see those as being very different arguments. In fact, they are basically diametrically opposite uses of copyright.

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.

Re:morons

[ReelOddeeo]

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.

GPL also wasn't the issue - but proved a good tool

[Ungrounded Lightning]

But remember, the GPL itself is not specifically "tested", per se, because GPL software developers assert them rights granted to them via copyright on an individual basis.

Also: As I read it GPL wasn't strictly at issue here. The core issue was whether a standards organization can claim IP rights over the standard itself when that standard is embodied as code. Once that issue was clearly articulated both parties seemed to take the enforcability of the terms of the GPL as a given.

What is important here is that it was the terms of the GPL that allwed Drew Technologies to haul the SAE into court, claim damages from them, and get them to settle WITH a payment of damages.

The SAE had posted Drew Tech's code, claiming they owned the copyright because it was derivitive of the standard and demanding a "subscription fee" from both Drew Tech and from all other users of Drew Tech's GPLed code.

The GPL violation was the hook Drew Tech chose to file a takedown demand, drag the SAE into court, and demand damages for violation of THEIR copyrights - like any other GPL software provider. B-)

Even in the absense of an actual decision, this case shows that licensing your code under the GPL doesn't jepoardize your ability to haul offenders into court and claim (and get settlements for) damages for violating your license terms.

I thought....

[Audacious]

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. :-) ])

nothing to do with the GPL

[iamnotanumber6]

really - whether this was a settlement or a judgement, it really has nothing to do with "testing" the GPL.

1. some people (Drew) wrote some software that complied to (implemented) a standard.
2. the standard is copyrighted by someone else, the SAE (the issue of whether they can copyright or charge royalties on something that's part of the law I think is a side issue).
3. SAE tried to claim ownership of the copyright of the software, claiming it was a "deriviative work" of the standard.
4. they were unsuccessful in doing so, the core reason being because copyright only covers a particular composition of text, not the "ideas, procedures, processes, methods of operation, concepts, principles, or discoveries," that may be described, explained, illustrated, or embodied" within it. if I write a book explaining how to turn lead into gold, you can't copy the sentences and paragraphs I wrote. but you can certainly write your own book explaining the same procedure. this is a long-standing principle, and no new legal ground was broken here - no precedents.
5. Drew was confirmed as the legal copyright owners of their software, not the SAE, which was what the case was about.
6. Drew (had) happened to release the code under the GPL. This is an expression of how they wish to excercise their copyrights. But nothing about the GPL was tested or decided. Only that Drew owns the copyright, which allows them to release it under GPL, and SAE cannot prevent them from doing that because SAE does not own the copyright because it is not a derivative of SAE's copyrighted work.

the validity and terms of the GPL never entered into it. talk about a "victory for the GPL" is nonsense.

Re:Okay, now it's official (slightly off-topic)

[jericho4.0]

Simple. If I print up a book to give to a friend, that's personal use. If I print up 1000 novels to sell, that's not.

Re:GPL Derivative Works

[Almost-Retired]

I see you still don't 'get' it regarding the GPL. So let one of those freaks you refer to attempt to enlighten you.

When those GPL'd libraries are linked in, staticly or dynamicly at runtime, you are still making use of code that bears a GPL license. If your code that wants to use that GPL licensed code as part of its functionality isn't GPL also, then the linking is, and properly so, a violation of the GPL and illegal by copyright law.

There is no 'slightly pregnant' here. If you want to use GPL'd code, then your code must be likewise GPL'd or under an approved similar license. End of discussion.

Gawd I wish some dummy would actually let this get to where the judge renders his/her opinion for public record and let the precedent actually be set instead of saveing a few on attorneys fees with a settlement when they realise that tweaking the GPL tigers tail is going to get them eaten.

You're right about one thing, these decisions really are quite obvious. Oh, and go learn how to spell license too. There are in fact several ways, but yours is not among them in my dictionary.

--
Cheers, gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
99.34% setiathome rank, not too shabby for a WV hillbilly