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.'"
Does something go into public domain just because it is posted somewhere for free (example: Usenet):
."
False. Nothing modern and creative is in the public domain anymore unless the owner explicitly puts it in the public domain(*). Explicitly, as in you have a note from the author/owner saying, "I grant this to the public domain." Those exact words or words very much like them.
See Also: Out of Germany, but even someone like D-Link couldn't shake the GPL:
"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
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
It's being given away with conditions. The condition is that you obey the licensing agreement.
LOL, now I can sell copies of all those promotional CDs that I got in college!
I'm pretty sure that this defense won't work.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
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'
Using their argument, I guess that if the publisher sends me a free book I can make copies. I put my name on as the author and sell too.
IT'S FREE!
ANYTHING GOES!
There is no way I can see JMRI losing, if the American court system has any integrity left at all. You can't get much more blatantly violating copyright than this. Its outrageous.
Waffles rock.
You can't wave your boobs around from the balcony expecting everyone who looks to toss you some beads. Once you're out there, you're out there and if no one gives you a strand then that's really your own fault for putting yourself on the line in the first place.
It is kind of weird to expect that someone ought to play your game when you've already given up your whole hand.
So when did your mother change her name to "FOSS"?
Your honor, since Star Wars was shown on TV, for free, I had every right to edit in some new scenes and sell it as Matt's Space Adventure.
Yeah, right. This sounds like the defense of last resort.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
I'm sure MPAA, RIAA, ESA, BSA and friends will have something to say aboutthis. Some of their software then gets hit pretty hard (demos aren't copyrighted, snag the code!; MP3s of songs; clips of movies; movie promotional materials on a website...)
The other side came back with an argument that copyright law didn't apply, simply because they software was 'being given away for free.
Copyright is not a guarantee of a revenue stream, or even an implication of one. It's about ownership.
What you choose to do with that ownership is your own business. Make a fortune, or not. Your copyright, your choice.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Whee!
This case looks like it'll help shut up those morons who think free software licenses (i.e. the GPL) are unenforcable.
We've had Sitecom's laughable 'exhaustion of rights/first sale' argument thrown out of court in Germany.
In another German case, D-Link tried to claim that the GPL was invalid, therefore they had a right to use GPL'ed code as if it was public domain. That didn't get them anywhere.
And Daniel Wallace has been slapped eight ways to Sunday in two court cases (one of them being taken to appeal) for attempting to claim that the GPL violated the antitrust laws. Impressively, he spurred three different judges to each give a ringing endorsement to the GPL, one of them going so far as to refer to Linux as 'GNU/Linux' exclusively throughout his final ruling!
Now here, the defendant is mirroring a common anti-GPL troll, by claiming the Artistic License is a contract, not a license, and that code given for free on the internet is public domain. He's going to lose of course, and the precedent will almost certainly apply to the GPL when he does.
Now all we need is for some kook to try claiming that the GPL, or some other similar license, is preempted by the US constitution (You still there, SCO?), and that's pretty much all the standard anti-GPL attacks exhausted.
Looks like free software's legal foundations are being solidly built as we speak...
Copyrights are 95 years, such that the public domain is effectively dead.
Open source/creative commons have taken the place of the public domain.
So yes, copyright law way too long.
But while it is that way, then open source is a workaround that uses copyright law to protect the work for public use through licensing.
I don't know how well it would apply to software, but there is an established precedent in publishing that says it is illegal to steal things that are offered for free. An example of this would be taking an inordinate amount of free newspapers from the stands.
While those copies are being offered for free, they were not produced for free. This is why so many of such free papers now bear a label similar to "Take one, if you want more, contact the editor."
In the software world, the open source plaintiffs could argue that, while their product is offered for free, it was not produced for free. That, and the license under which the defendant agreed to use the software specifically states that they must follow the terms of the license in order to use the software.
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
This half-assed defense also presumes that money is the only legitimate cause of action in the courts.
Rong.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
People with means and money steal from those who do not, with blatant disregard of laws which they would use in a heartbeat to protect themselves if the tables were turned. In the Quick Overview on the JMRI home page it is stated that, not only is Katzer using JMRI's software without giving them due credit, but Katzer is attempted to obtain money per copy from JMRI for the distribution of their own code using a patent to show ownership while completely ignoring the prior art. According to the JMRI website Katzer has gone so far as to contact the employer of one of the JMRI contributors, Bob Jacobsen, in an effort to intimidate Bob into bending to Katzer's desires.
It happens all the time. Consider the following example in which a private author made a post to a forum debunking an article which attempted to associate marijuana use with an acute risk of cardiac arrest. That post was subsequently misquoted and the subject line taken out of context in the interest of expressing the exact opposite opinion, promote a product, sell advertising space, and defame the original author by putting words in their mouth. When human resources representatives came across the heartdiseaseguru.com page while scraping the web for employees' e-mail addresses, the private author subsequently experienced a complete loss of credibility in the workplace due to: an alleged heart attack which wasn't reported in the preemployment screening (which never happened), alleged marijuana use (which the employer would never have known about), and a propensity for making completely unsubstantiated claims (that marijuana use is a cause of an acute heart attack). The heartdiseaseguru.com web page is regenerated each time it is loaded. About one out of every five page loads will result in the story on the side reading with a line "Steven Maximilln maximilln at hotmail.com reported using the drug within an hour before heart attack". This implies that the author does use marijuana and has had a heart attack--neither of which is true according to the original post on the MAPS forum.
Thankfully the JMRI team has legal counsel available to them. Let's hope that they are able to secure a true and just judgement which will preserve their rights to their own code. The private author in the example above endured harassment, loss of promotion options, and eventually became homeless. Every attorney contacted to remedy the situation has asked for a retainer fee to even look at the two web links cited above.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
The most worrying part here is that the anti-SLAPP lawsuit won.
Hello!?!? This alone stands to kill any and every small Open Source project in California. I know of a few here, in Silicon Valley no less.
Could someone with a legal background (or even reasonable knowledge here) please explain how this could possibly happen, and what defense on Open Source project has!?!?!
Thanks.
Here is a bit of background information on the company using this Chewbacca style defence.
KAMIND Associates delivers Microsoft solutions for small business customers. We use a standards methodology in understanding our customer's needs. Our policy is to evaluate the customer requirements and generate a phase plan of action that details the work needed to accomplish the task - fully disclosing all problems and issues.
As part of our service model, we work with customers to develop an integrated IT services plan that solves the customers need and results in long term bottom line savings.
As a locally own small business owner, we are very much aware of the cost of an improper IT solution that does not deliver the productivity gains expected. Our phased approach for small business is a win-win business model. Our customers win by having an efficient solution for the their problem, and we win by delivering the solution on time, on budget and on schedule.
KAMIND Associates specializes using Microsoft technologies for commercial and retail market. These areas of include.
I would personally stay away from any company whose management cannot understand basic copyright regulation and attempts to defend itself with such a nonsense argument as "the software is being given away for free".
[alk]
Some of my best-moderated stuff comes from me talking out my ass. It works every time! It's funny, but when I actually do know what the hell I'm talking about I don't get anything.
SRSLY.
Yeah, right.
You'd think- but the asshole (Matt Katzer) filed an anti-SLAPP lawsuit in response to a lawsuit seeking him to cease and desist (he was hounding a government research facility that was employing one of the JMRI authors and JMRI had enough)..basically won it, and got over $30K for his attorneys...and that's AFTER their claims for legal fees were determined to be excessive/unreasonable, and reduced!
He's run out and filed patents for stuff days after someone else announced they developed it...then turned around and demanded hundreds of thousands of dollars in royalties. Made absolutely insane, blatantly false assertations.
Both his lawyers should be disbarred based on the level of falsehoods present in court filings. EFF, where the hell are you? I'm always hearing about I should donate to the EFF, but I don't see them doing a fucking thing for JMRI to fend off this sleaze.
Please help metamoderate.
"The other side came back with an argument that copyright law didn't apply, simply because they software was 'being given away for free.'"
From that statement I assumed that this is a Pro Se case then I went and read the article. I think the defendant needs to get another lawyer because his current one is fucking stupid.
Just because you include the source code in no way nullifies your copyright. IANAL but even I know that much. The fact that the user accepted the license testifies to the fact that he acknowledges the copyright because one can not give a license to a software product without having the copyright.
This lawyer's case is going down like a cheap whore.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
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.
"The other side came back with an argument that copyright law didn't apply, simply because they software was 'being given away for free.'""
Have you ever seen milk come out of a judge's nose?
Not quite.
Federal courts are perfectly able to decide matters of state law, and in fact do so all the time.
Anyway, federal copyright law includes a provision that preempts state copyright law. The idea is that this way there is only one system of copyright law in the US, rather than parallel state and federal systems, where the state systems might differ amongst themselves. Remember that the federal government lacks inherent powers and instead is given powers from the states and the people. The states had copyright laws before the current government even existed, but it was one of those sorts of things that they tended to do a poor job with, which is why the federal government, when it was created, was given some more authoritative power there too. Even so, there was still significant state copyright law in operation until the 1976 Act, and there's still some even today. However, in an attempt to clean things up, the preemption statute was put into place. Basically, if a state has a law that is the equivalent to copyright, the federal law makes it non-operative. Of course, states can still have laws that are sufficiently different from the federal scheme to remain active, even if they're basically copyright laws.
Here, the plaintiff is making some state law claims, and the defendant is saying that they fall under the preemption statute and are void. They may be right, though I'd have to see exactly what's being claimed. However, the federal copyright claims can't be dispensed with so easily.
In order to attack those, he's saying that the plaintiff copyright holder has a valid copyright but has given permission to the world to engage in the behavior that the defendant is accused of. This is possible, though it's either the same or nearly the same as putting the work in the public domain. And if the work was merely GPLed (and not also or alternatively placed under some license that does what defendant says) then I don't see it being a winning argument. Still, you have to argue the case you've got, not the case you wish you had. As with most legal disputes, this'll probably just end up settling.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
You're missing out on the distinction between the letter and the spirit of the law.
In letter, yes, the GPL is the same as every other license. In spirit, however, the GPL is more of a license of empowerment while most others tend to be licenses of restrictions. The history and philosophy of the GNU project, and especially Copyleft, make this distinction pretty clear. If the distinction isn't already known or obvious to you then you will be doing yourself a favor by perusing GNU--which has a snazzy new look to it since the last time I visited.
Hustlers exist solely through charity. I see their scams, lies, and deceit: I'm too charitable to outright shoot them.
Because you have a transferable token, then it would appear - to my untrained eye - to be a transaction that has involved the payment of that token.
Now, as I understand it, the reason general "free distribution" cases wouldn't be covered is that there is no such token payment and therefore no instrument by which copyright can be carried. This would explain why the general case is NOT covered, but would also mean that this case unquestionably is.
There is another aspect to this. A "Gentlemen's Agreement" requires an agreement between two individuals to be witnessed by an independent third individual. If there is a Gentlemen's Agreement to honour the license as a statement of copyright, then I believe there would be a case for claiming that copyright would apply whether or not it would normally have done so.
Ok, so we have the two parties. Is there an independent witness to an agreement? That one might be interesting to argue. I'd claim that Richard Stallman knows neither party but DOES know what the GPL means and can therefore be an independent witness to the effect that by accepting the GPL, the licensee has accepted the Gentlemen's Agreement. Not sure how well that would stick, though. My suspicion, though, is that if the judge reads and approves of the GPL as a legal instrument, but is 50-50 as to which way to go, the Gentlemen's Agreement argument might be enough to swing it, if such agreements are recognized in that State.
The last possibility is that if the licensee claims that they're not bound by copyright, and since copyright is the sole instrument to allow the licensee to use ANY GPL product whatsoever, Stallman may just declare the licensee Accursed and have them prohibited from using or obtaining ANY GPL product whatsoever, for all of eternity. (Under the license, that IS the standard penalty for blaspheming the GPL in this way.) This would not impact the current lawsuit as much as it opens the licensee up to a lawsuit for EVERY GPL product they use, distribute or possess. Quite simply, the costs involved in defending a massive distributed denial-of-sourcecode attack could cause some serious damage, and because it is an explicitly stated curse, not a single one of those lawsuits would likely be thrown as frivolous.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
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.
that thinks this argument has much wider implications than just Open Source Software? If the judge rules for this piece of crap argument, it could pretty much shut down the web. Sites like the New York times, and ESPN would be forced to charge for every bit of content on their sites, because if they didn't, they would run the risk of losing control of their copyrighted material.
IANAL... But I play one on
An interesting point, but no defense in this case. Either way they violated JMRI's copyright. If they argue that the GPL is not a valid contract, then you are basically admitting that they infringed on the copyright without the author's express permission. A different situation, because you still own the thing you purchased if a EULA is not valid, whereas if the GPL is not valid the copyright still defaults to the original holder.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
I can't believe no one corrected you yet.
The GPL is a distribution license, not an End User Licence Agreement. EULAs are licenses to use the software. The GPL is a license to distribute the software. You do not have to agree to the GPL to use any GPL software. The GPL gives you more rights than default copyright gives. EULAs give less rights than default copyright.
I believe EULAs are invalid by the doctrine of first sale. But, of course, IANAL. I feel that if EULAs are upheld we're going to start seeing EULAs on automobiles and other such property. Imagine if the computer chip in a car would keep the car from starting if you weren't using a "certified" fuel filter or gasoline. Then if you tampered with the chip (your propery, mind you since you paid for it), the manufacturer would sue you under the DMCA. You'd scream bloody hell, but for some reason when it comes to software people take it in the ass.
They certainly don't assert that copyright doesn't apply for Free Software or Open Source. This same exact argument could be used on a shrinkwrap EULA "violation."
I guess it does raise a technical issue, though. When a creator and a user don't actually meet, sign contracts, etc -- when licensing gets implied -- how do you decide it if actually happened?
For example, with either a Microsoft EULA, or GPLed Linux, or whatever, at some point a user may decide to do something that is not Fair Use under copyright. Maybe they want to modify the software and sell 10 copies to someone else (in the case of GPL) or maybe they want to .. uh .. actually I can't think of any rights that MS EULAs grant, but let's ass/u/me that there's some sort of reason a person might want to agree to it. (?!)
When the user goes ahead and does the licensed copyright violation (e.g. selling 10 copies of Linux), it is argued that either they have violated copyright, or they have agreed to the license. Now let's say they are also doing something that is not permitted by the license (such as selling copies of Linux w/out offering the source). So now, they're either violating copyright, or they're violating the license. How do you know which one they did? Just like Microsoft's relationship with their users, you don't have any evidence that they ever accepted the license.
If they sue you for copyright violation, just say you accepted the license -- and then they need to sue you for breach of contract instead. If they sue you for breach of contract, say you didn't accept the license, and then they'll have to sue for you copyright violation instead.
Without evidence of what happened, you make 'em sue you twice. Of course, the second time (assuming they have any lawyer-money left), they've got you.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Well, there are technically conditions imposed if you chose not to agree to the license. but those conditions are only the legal rights to distributing the software/code. If you refuse the license (with a GPLed piece of code), you are refusing the only condition to get those rights. SO if you refuse, you cannot give the stuff to anyone else for any reason other then what fair use on copy written work policy might allow.
Everyone who is claiming you need payment isn't looking at the whole picture. They seem to think that because if I give you something free as in free beer, it is yours. But they aren't looking at the hidded aspects of copyright. But,it payment is felt neccesary, the payment with the GPL code and software even if it is monetarily free as in free beer is still there. Doing an action like painting a house for a car instead of the money to buy a car is still income and expenses and generaly considered a transaction. Accepting a license or refusing to accept a license and not distibuting the protected work can be the payment if one needs to be there. Especially when some people place such a high value on free software.
Actually, with only some minor exceptions as to certain bodies of law, or certain limited-jurisdiction courts, all courts get to deal with foreign law.
For example, let's say you are arrested in your state, by your local police, and they make some kind of terrible procedural error. You'll end up in a county court, most likely, which is a court created by your state, but you can make an argument based on the federal constitution. The court will consider this law, which is foreign to it in that it's a state court, not a federal court, and can interpret it, and rule accordingly.
A state court can not only deal with federal law, but it can also interpret the law of other states in making its decisions in a case that demands it. And likewise, federal courts that need to consider matters of state law are able to do so. In some cases, these courts can even interpret the laws of foreign countries. Naturally, a court that makes an interpretation of foreign law can't issue an opinion that's binding on the foreign courts (e.g. a state court can't bind a federal court on federal law, just as a federal court can't bind a state on state law), but it is binding on any courts below the one issuing the opinion, and can still influence the foreign court if it's a particularly good interpretation.
One way to get to federal court is through diversity, as you noted. The idea there is that the federal court, not beholden to any state, will be fairer than a state court would where one party is a native and the other party from outside that state. Another way is to have an issue of federal law at stake. For most such issues, there is concurrent jurisdiction; a federal claim could be made just as easily in state court as in federal court, and it's up to the plaintiff to get to pick.
But in this case, Congress made a law (28 USC 1338) that says that the federal courts have exclusive jurisdiction in copyright cases. This means that if a case is a copyright case, no state court can hear it at all. (Of course not all cases that involve a copyright at all are actually copyright cases; many are really contract cases where the copyright could just as easily be a microwave, since it's just the thing being fought over) This is because Congress doesn't want states to have much of an effect on copyright policy. And since our judicial systems also have a rule of res judicata, a plaintiff can't split his claims; he has to sue the defendant for everything he can as to the complained of factual scenario, or else he loses the claims he didn't bring. So the federal court has to hear the state claims or else the defendant would have to choose between a copyright suit or a state law suit and couldn't bring both. This is the only fair way to do it.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
is that a 1998 precident
Argh, that's twice, dude. It's spelled "precedent".
One simple rule for its versus it's
If you read the actual court documents, what the defense seems to be saying is that the license (which evidently isn't GPL - it's some kind of Xfree or Berkely style license) requires them only to give credit to the authors - which they have evidently not done and this they do not seem to deny (although, of course they don't admit it either!). The significant part of their argument is that say that the consequence of their failure to do so is not a violation of copyright law - but instead a breach of the license terms of the software. Then they point to Sun vs Microsoft over Java in which it was ruled that MS had not violated copyright law but had instead breached the terms of their license.
IANAL - but that seems reasonable to me. Of course now they need to be stuck with a charge of breaching the license terms - but that's evidently not what the prosecution have accused them of. The problem is that the Xfree and similar licenses don't have cast-iron legal language as GPL does - so with weak language describing the 'licensing' terms - it seems possible that the defendants could indeed weasel their way out of this.
Personally, I think that if you are going to use one of those licenses, the best you could hope for is a one line mention in the very small print of the Albanian section of the user manual - somewhere between the environmental impact statement and the warning not to let children under 3 years play with the software because of choking hazards. Why the heck you'd find that important escapes me. If you want solid copyright protection, use the GPL - if you want utter freedom for people to do whatever they like with your code - then don't be surprised when they do exactly that.
www.sjbaker.org
The determination in the Sun Vs MS case wasn't that Sun didn't have a copyright case because of the contract -- but rather that the judge didn't distinguish that MS was violating copyright (as opposed to contract) before (s)he issued an injunction under the (far more lax) rules of copyright infringement.
The GPL, on the other hand, simply says that I only have the permission to distribute MySQL if I'm following the terms of the license. Thus, if I'm not following the rules of the GPL, my only defense is that I'm not violating copyright. i.e. a GPL case is solely a copyright case, with the defendant having only two credible defenses:
- I'm not distributing your software (and thus not violating copyright), or
- I'm following the GPL, so you're estopped from suing me.
IANAL, but I think that claiming that a GPL suit isn't about copyright is going to be a seriously uphill battle (as in almost vertical).Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
My interpretation is that as long as you provide a link to the author's web page somewhere on your site, you are golden.
Sounds like you can incorporate the open-source code into a commercial program, as long as you do not advertise that you are using it!
There are also no patent requirements -- at all! Which means someone can patent the ideas in the source code and then sue the original copyright holder -- while distributing the code! Since the existence of prior art does not render an issued patent invalid, this is a distinct possibility. Not to mention, how are you going to argue monetary damages if there are barely any restrictions?
Really, it sounds like the guy suing JMRI is mostly in the right, legally speaking. The artistic license may not be enforceable, and appears to give him the right to distribute the code commercially. The breach of contract suit won't yield any monetary damages -- the license is not restrictive enough. His patents are valid (at least until the USPTO revokes them, which may never happen). All I can say is... should have used the GPL.
The GPL gives you distribution rights provided you pass on those same distribution rights. The GPL does not give absolute irrevocable distribution rights. As soon as you violate the terms of the license, you lose those conditionally-granted distribution rights yourself, and it devolves back into a normal copyright case.
What the heck is so hard to understand about that?
The beauty of the GPL lies in its supremely elegant hack of using copyright to fight copyright. The ONLY way the GPL can fail is if copyright itself is declared null and void. If there are ANY flaws in the GPL, those EXTRA redistribution rights would automatically be cancelled. The GPL grants EXTRA rights, and if it fails, those extra rights die with it.
"I give you permission to pass around this program based on my copyrighted work, provided that you tell everyone you pass it to that they have this same right under the same conditions to a copy of the source code."
"OK."
"Hey, Joe just said you refused to give him the source code to that program."
"Yup."
"Bingo, you no longer have any rights to redistribute the program based on my source code."
Pretty damn simple.
Infuriate left and right
> Isn't the GPL just a "Click Through EULA", except for the fact that you don't "Click Through" it?
> Same, really, if you ask me.
> We want our cake (GPL, OSS, etc) but we wanna eat it too (i.e. all EULA's are invalid, thus don't bind us or count).
No. Unless I'm severely mistaken, the GPL is nothing like a EULA because a EULA dictates rules and conditions that are supposed to govern your usage of the software as soon as you have purchased and installed it. The GPL on the other hand covers distribution. You can do whatever you like with a GPL program, including modifying it without releasing the changes to the source, so long as you keep it to yourself, because the GPL terms only kick in if you start handing out copies to other people.
The idea that EULAs are invalid comes from the absurdity of attaching a contract to any other copyrighted work such as music, artwork, and literature. By default you can do what you like with these - no one makes you sign an agreement (yet) saying that you can only listen to a CD if you're in your car or its your birthday. But you cannot copy and redistribute a work by default (barring Fair Use). This is illegal except through the terms of the GPL, or whatever other license the author chooses. If the license has a condition that says you have to walk on you hands and spin around three times before you're allowed to send a copy to someone, you're allowed to not obey that term; you simply lose your authority to legally make the copy.
Evidently, the key to understanding recursion is to begin by understanding recursion. The rest is easy.
If the grantee violates the GPL, the granter is NO LONGER granting redistribution rights, and the ex-grantee's continued redistribution falls back on standard copyright law.
Repeat after me. Violation of the GPL terminates your redistribution rights and it falls back to a standard copyright violation. The 1998 precedent has no bearing whatsoever because you are violating copyright law.
Keeriminy it's simple.
Infuriate left and right
So you are saying if a software company sells CDs of their programs to retailers and permits the retailers to redistribute the CDs, then they've forfeited their copyrights? Retailers buy software specificly to resell and redistribute it.
Or how about software companies who make libraries for other software companies to use? If the companies who buy couldn't redistribute the libraries, the software they make themselves wouldn't be very useful. (Have you ever tried to run a program without a library it requires?)
You are essentially saying copyright is now lifted.
Wooo Hoo! Hey boys, fire up yer burners! We gon'a give 50,000 of our friends a copy o' Micer-sorft Winders Ex-Peeeoo!!! And it be all legal too! Yeah!
The claim is that copyright does not apply if a license is offered.
Try run that one past Microsoft's attorneys when you start selling burned CDs of Vista, then come back and tell us how that went.