Slashdot Mirror
Copyright Protection Problems For OSS Project
An anonymous reader writes "There's a federal case in the Northern District of California where copyright for open source is being challenged. The free software project JMRI discovered that a commercial company was
using some of their files in a product, in violation of the license. They added a copyright claim to an ongoing legal action about cybersquatting, software patent abuse, etc. The patent case was covered on Slashdot back in June but the copyright part is new. The other side came back with an argument that copyright law didn't apply, simply because they software was 'being given away for free.'"
It's being given away with conditions. The condition is that you obey the licensing agreement.
Because as far as I can tell there is nothing in the copyright act implies that just because a copyright holder is not making any financial profit off of his work that he in some way forfeits any of his rights as the copyright holder.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Where the hell is the EFF in all of this? What are my dues paying for if not to take on easy but important cases like this one? These people need some compotent lawyers on their side or this is going to end up in a bad way.
If you read the news on the site as well as the judge's order, you see that JMRI contributor Jacobsen brought Katzer and his company KAM to court in an effort to stop him from harassing Jacobsen at home and at work and from continuing to send and demand payment of bills in excess of $200,000 for imagined patent royalties for the distribution of open source JMRI.
Because Jacobsen basically made the wrong technical legal charges in an effort to gain relief from Katzer's false accusations and harassment, Jacobsen, the open source developer, ended up being forced to pay Katzer approximately $30,000 in legal fees.
It appears that Jacobsen represented himself.
Now, this situation in itself is deeply disturbing. Jacobsen apparently did not hire a lawyer, and what is disturbing is that he should NOT have had to hire a lawyer in order to get relief from bullying by Katzer and his corporation that was already interfering with Jacobsen's personal and professional life. Because he thought justice would be done for the little guy if you are just honest, he made charges that were technically wrong. An honest mistake. A technicality.
In the case of a private citizen against a corporation (KAM in this case), justice must not come down to whether the citizen dots his 'I's and crosses his 'T's. Justice must not be dependent upon the citizen's economic means. In this and many cases it clearly was. The legal system through which we must rely for relief from injustice such as this is truly a quagmire as we can see in this case by Jacobsen, clearly the victim, being forced to pay legal fees to a corporation because of a technicality.
Do you realize it is illegal in most states for an ordinary citizen to read try to help another citizen by answering questions about what a law even means - for attempting to understand on our own the laws the govern our lives? There is a tax on justice to the tune of $200/hour+.
Jacobsen should be able to go into a court, tell the court what is happening to him, and the COURT should look at the situation and say, look, you are the victim here, this is what laws this asshole is guilty of, if he does this again you come back here and we will punish him.
THAT is what should happen. I don't care how it is done. Maybe that means public attorneys who we can go to for legal advice and to file the correct charges in court. Maybe that means courts that we can just make in and the judge will be responsible for determining if and how he has been wronged. This isn't going to be popular with the trial lawyer lobby. The same as they have lobbied to make it illegal for us to try to help fellow citizens to understand the laws that govern our lives, they also strongly resist any move that would allow us people to get justice out of this system of ours without inserting quarters in their pockets just to play.
You won't see Republicans get behind this because their big business sugar daddies want to keep citizens under their thumbs. You won't see Democrats get behind this because they are in the pockets of the trial lawyer lobby.
A technicality is not justice at all. Fuck you KAM. And fuck you you goddamned lawyers who work for money not for what is just and true.
The "problem" appears to be that Jacobsen represented himself and made legal charges that were technically wrong. I mean, he charged Katzer (KAM) on one count under anti-trust law. Read the judge's order. The issue with justice in our country, in my mind is illustrated here by the fact that Jacobsen is clearly the victim, yet because he did not have money to spend on a lawyer and made some technical legal blunders trying to do it on his own, he ends up getting bent over.
It's despicable, but that's how justice works in this country.
We need a system where a guy like Jacobsen here can just go down to the court, tell the judge in plain words what this fucker Katzer is doing to him, and get relief without having to put up big bucks for a lawyer and without facing $30,000 in essentially fines because of a technical screwup that someone without legal training can't be expected to have forseen.