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GPL Hard to Enforce?
the-dark-kangaroo writes "The GPL may be difficult to enforce due to a lack of clarity over who owns the copyright to the software, according to a legal expert.
Lucie Guibault, an assistant professor of intellectual-property law at the Institute for Information Law in Amsterdam, said at the Holland Open Software Conference in Amsterdam, that the GPL should clarify who is the author of the software to ensure that open source software distributed under this licence receives legal protection."
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If the author of GPL-licensed product discovers that a company has not adhered to the terms and conditions of the free software licence, the individual may find it difficult to argue his case in court as the defending party could argue that the copyright appears to belong to the Free Software Foundation, according to Guibault.
"The only name that appears on the licence is the Free Software Foundation -- they appear to be the licensor," she said.
Seriously, you can't pay someone to come up with schlock this bad.
We'll see what is enforceable and what isn't when these big companies that are dumping money in to open source development feel like they have something to protect from each other.
You are about to give someone a piece of your mind, something which you can ill afford...
They own the copyright to their patches, but not to the thing they're patching. Just like the renter of an apartment owns the microwave oven they bought, but not the apartment they put it in.
Then to point out the even greater boneheadedness of this story, let's say that EvilMegaCorp went to court and said "oh, we didn't think you owned this copyright, we thought the FSF did" and the judge agreed, the FSF would be in court the next day saying "no, we didn't write it, we wrote the license, but if you'd like to name us as the author of the software we'll gladly defend the copyright on it."
So STFU and get back to teaching students how to swindle.
How we know is more important than what we know.
I have exclusive copyright for my work, unless I transfer it in a written "instrument of conveyance."
An infringer might claim that I have no standing, but could not possibly make that case as there is no instrument of conveyance, and I and FSF would both testify that I had not tranferred ownership.
Since when was uncertainty as to the owner a defence? If I rip off your bicycle (to use the stupid IP as physical property analogy), am I less guilty because I thought I was ripping off somebody else's?
Seems like his 'enforcement' has relied on the good nature of the 'violators'.
A quick glance didnt point out any legal findings in real court, so its all just a lot of hot air.
The GPL doesnt stand up.
Lucky all these companies caved in then isn't it? I mean, you'd expect multiple companies to cave in to the demands to fight off the terrifying threat of an individual with a baseless case, right?
Just because it didn't make it to court doesn't mean the case is without merit. In fact quite the opposite. The GPL violators caving before court suggests that they figured there was a good chance they wouldn't win.
When the patch has been applied to the project he is legally one of the copyright holders of the project, unless he has assigned his copyright elsewhere.
Joe Hacker's code is still copyright Joe Hacker. When did he assign away his copyright? Not by using the GPL. Of course, it might be hard for Joe Hacker to find out where is code has ended up ... but that's life on the
globe of corporate scumbags we call
Earth.
Jack N Box downloads the code, modifies it to modification.cc and posts it as GPL material.
Jack has to leave the original copyright notice on the code, or he violates the GPL by distributing the modifications.
Company X downloads modification.cc code uses it to make a propritary product and claims all ownership of the work, ignoring the terms of the GPL.
If SCO can sue IBM because they *thought* they could convince people that source code was copied from SCO, how much more do you thinks the courts will go for the fact that the exact same code is demonstratably open and owned by Joe Hacker, even if it doesn't say so?
For instance, what prevents Company X from just skipping the Jack N Box completely and pretending to find the code laying out in the public domain somewhere with no copyright notice or GPL license? Obviously, the (exact) similarity between the original source and Company X's will prove otherwise, which probably happens quite a lot in normal copyright cases. The judges will laugh them off the face of the earth.
Yes, as a zillion high rated comment already point out, there is no legal doubt that the author own the code. And a "copyright year name" statement is not needed, but anyway encouraged and common (the article actually also state that).
However, the article is about damages, not ownership. If it is unclear to the defendant who the opposing legal party was, it may reduce the chance or size of damages awarded. At least in Holland. No question though, the defendant will be forced to stop the illegal distribution.
Stopping the illegal distribution is what is most important to us, but a lawyer is usually paid to extract as many money as possible, so his point of view is obviously different.