Slashdot Mirror
GPL Successfully Defended in German Court
Philip Bailey writes "The GPL Violations Project, based in Germany, have won (subject to appeal) a court case against D-Link, who had allegedly distributed parts of the Linux kernel in a product in a way which contravened the GPL. D-Link had claimed that the GPL was not 'legally binding' but have now agreed to cease and desist, and refrain from distributing the infringing product, a network attached storage device. Expenses, including legal expenses, were received by the plaintiffs; they did not request any damages, consistent with their policy. They have previously won a number of out of court settlements against other companies. Slashdot has previously mentioned the GPL Violations Project."
The thing is, even if the GPL is not legally binding... what else gives D-Link the right to distributed copyrighted works of others? Answer: Nothing
We expect people to agree to our Terms of Use but we don't have to obey those from others when we use their products.
How hypocritical!
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Copyright by itself is viral. If you modify someone elses Work of Art (i.e. creating your own work based on the original), you need her permission. To distribute it you need her permission again. And to distribute it for modification, you have to ask for permission again and again. Same is valid for the modificaton of the modification. This is viral by nature. The GPL just gives you all three permissions at once, but it doesn't change the virality.
In fact the same is valid for the BSD licence. The original copyright holder has to be mentioned in all derived works, and also in the derivations of the derivations. In this case the virality is attached to another aspect, but it is still viral.
...that your perceptions are maybe the result of different groups of people comprising the slashdot community? I've found that my own opinions on certain subjects are in a minority, while on other subjects they seem to be in the majority. I've even witnessed that on certain topics, moderation of certain viewpoints that you think would be related, turn out differently depending on the topic. I suspect this is due to many people, like myself for example, who just don't read certain topics, while reading other topics faithfully.
I myself have a very low opinion of those who think they have a right to copy whatever they want because "information wants to be free". I see such people as manufacturing reasons to justify their own shoddy behavior. OTOH, I have a very high opinion of the GPL(and other open source licenses) and those who defend them.
Just keep that in mind.
"Our morality is good, theirs is repressive."- Partisanship Rule #3
Imagine this. A clueless properietary software company builds some software based on all the best libraries it can find. It takes some GPLed libraries, licenses some closed source libraries, and links it all together into one closed source executable. Normally, it has to sign non-discolsure agreements as parts of the deal to license the closed source libraries.
In this situation, there is absolutely no way for the clueless company to legally sell the executable. Under the GPL, it must supply the source code for everything needed to build the executable. The only options are: 1) violate the GPL and try to get away with it; 2) release the complete source and get sued by the other closed source licensors for violation of the NDA; 3) no longer sell the executable. I wonder which options most companies would go for?
I bet you this happens all the time. Perhaps even in some of our favorite closed source Linux kernel modules. NDAs are the primary reason given by NVidia and ATI for not open sourcing their graphics card drivers. Perhaps there are even several layers of this happening, with companies trying to sell licenses to closed-source modules that include GPLed software.
It should say absolutely nothing, because the GPL only covers distribution (which you don't automatically have a right to do) while most proprietary software licenses try to cover mere use (which you do automatically have a right to do, under the Doctrine of First Sale). Unlike the GPL, EULAs have no real meaning.
Of course, I'm not German so I have no idea if they do things differently than we do in the US.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Hm,
...
Yup, it looks like the GPL is now (officially) legally binding in Germany.
No, the GPL is not legal binding in germany. In germany only 2 things are legal binding: laws, and contracts. And this is more or less true also for the rest of the world, except that in some countries court rules "become law" or are similar to law unless in later times other courts do no longer agree in certain situations.
What after all does legal binding in your eyes mean anyway?
This says nothing about the EULAs that come with proprietary software. Those are different licenses with different terms, and would have to be tested individually.
What is an EULA? Something you agree on before you buy a product, that is before you aquire ownership? If so the EULA is completely valid as long as it does not contradict any law.
If you have aquired ownership of the product before the EULA is presented to you, e.g. there is a EULA on a sheet of paper inside of the box, or after opening the box and using the software a EULA dialog pops up, the EULA is completly irrelevant and void.
Back to the topic: as far as I understand the ompany D-Link claimed they simply used the GPLed software and had no contract with the author so the "GPL note" on the software would be not legal binding. Thats of course a bullshit idea of D-Link, especially as this is not the first GPL law suit in germany and in all cases the copyright owners won
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Many people (apparently even those in charge of large companies) seem to have this very strange idea that the GPL is not valid, and that because of this they can do whatever they want with the work in question. The premise doesn't have any basis in reality, but the conclusion is sheer insanity. It's somewhat akin to walking into a liquor store, noticing that their liquor license has recently expired and then stealing on their booze, claiming that because it can't legally be sold it must be free. The GPL's validity as a license has nothing to do with copyright law, and those people who have licensed their work under the GPL have explicitly NOT placed their work in the public domain. Hell, D-Link doesn't have (to my knowledge) a publically availible license for their proprietary code at all! That must mean it's public domain, right?
As much as I'd like to see a legal test of the GPL (not because I think it's invalid, but because coporations will become much more willing to deal with it, once it's been proven in court), this is simply a very, very basic test of copyright law. It's amazingly basic, but apparently some people still don't get it: D-Link doesn't think the GPL is a valid contract? Fine, then they're not licensed to distribute the code at all!
'' The GPL is *not* based on international copyright and contract law, but is rather parochially (and dangerously so) modeled on US/British legal views. One key point is the missing distinction between copyright (which cannot be transfered in German law but remains always with the author) and commercial exploitation rights (which can be assigned/sold etc.). The question whether the exact wording of the GPL implies an impossible transfer of copyright which would it make unenforcible in German law, or not is far from obvious, and it may require more court reviews until this is really settled in German law (the legal system does not require other courts to always follow precedence from isolated cases without established legal theory behind it). ''
The untransferable right of the author in German law is called "Urheberrecht", roughly translated as "creator's right". If I write software, then I am the creator, and according to German law nobody else is allowed to claim to be the creator. I cannot even sell you the right to call yourself the creator. That is the right protected by Urheberrecht: The right to claim that I am the author. There seems to be no such right explicitely mentioned in US law; on the other hand, if US citizen A writes some software, and US citizen B claims he wrote it, then B is a liar.
However, the US copyright _is_ the right to commercial exploitation. So your mapping US copyright = German Urheberrecht, ??? = german right to commercial exploitation is wrong. The correct mapping is German Urheberrecht = nothing corresponding in US law, German right to commercial exploitation = US copyright law.