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GPL Successfully Defended in German Court

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the penguin-shoots-penguins-scores dept.

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."

3 of 210 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Legally binding? by mindstrm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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

  2. Re:How arrogant by Sique · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    .sig: Sique *sigh*
  3. Did it ever occur to either you... by partisanX · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...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.

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    "Our morality is good, theirs is repressive."- Partisanship Rule #3