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
Nothing new here. Slashdot as a whole seems that way. It wants some sort of vindication that the gpl is valid, and c+d letters go flying. However when other companies, such as members of the **AA are involved, the crowd screams bloody murder. How dare these corporations excersize their right ? There goes my karma
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them.
It's easy. It always depends on the rights you are defending. GPL is defending the right to copy, modify and distribute. *AA is defending the right to stop you from copying, modifying and distributing.
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
'' 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.