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German Court Convicts Skype For Breaching GPL
terber writes "A German court has once again upheld the GPLv2 and convicted Skype (based in Luxembourg) of violating the GPL by selling the Linux-based VoIP phone 'SMCWSKP 100' without proper source code access. (Original is in German, link is a Google translation.) Skype later added a flyer to the phones' packaging giving a URL where the sources could be obtained; but the court found this insufficient and in breach of GPL section 3. The plaintiff was once again Netfilter developer Harald Welte, who runs gpl-violations.org. The decision is available in German at www.ifross.de (Google translation here)."
Noone would be convicted of "breaching the GPL". The GPL is not an EULA. If you violate the terms of the GPL, you are (re)distributing without a license permitting you to do so (since the GPL, which you violated, is the only thing that gives you permission to do so), which is a copyright violation, not a GPL violation. I wish articles would get the specifics right.
The actual problem is that they did not include the text of the GPL with the phone. The summary here in Slashdot didn't mention that, and had me wondering what the problem with the provided URL was.
The GPL is permissive, and thus turns the usual function of copyright on it's head.
In other words, usually when people violate copyright it's through an act that increases the spread of the information, and prosecuting them for it would restict that spread. In contrast, when people violate copyright by failing to abide by the GPL, they themselves are restricting the spread of the information and prosecuting them restores it.
If one (e.g., a "loyal drone") consistently believes that spreading information is good and restricting it is bad, there is no contradiction.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Can also check out this link for more info here
Thats actually just fine under the GPL, but when you hand that executable to someone else, thats when the GPL is invoked. If you grab some code change it and just use it for yourself you do not need to do anything, but when you distibute it, by putting it on phones you sell, or putting the binary up for download somewhere you must also include the source.
It's not fair use, because copies of software that are made for the purpose of using it are not covered by copyright in the first place. The law is explicit about this:
In short: It's not fair use (that's a different set of exemptions), but it is legal.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
At some point there will be a case where an evildoer will use the defense that since the copyright holder didn't pursue company X 5 years ago they should be prevented from trying to do it now. And poof! The copyright will vanish or be declared null and void and with it the GPL distribution license that goes along with it.
Wow, did you drink some SCO FUD? Copyrights are never nullified because of lack of enforcement, and I dare you to find an example. Not enforcing them may limit your ability to collect damages, but at any time you can send an injunction to make them stop.
What's needed is enforcement of copyright law:
506. Criminal offenses
(a) Criminal Infringement.
(1) In general. Any person who willfully infringes a copyright shall be punished as provided under section 2319 of title 18, if the infringement was committed
(A) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain;
2319. Criminal infringement of a copyright
(a) Any person who violates section 506 (a) (relating to criminal offenses) of title 17 shall be punished as provided in subsections (b), (c), and (d) and such penalties shall be in addition to any other provisions of title 17 or any other law.
(b) Any person who commits an offense under section 506 (a)(1)(A) of title 17
(1) shall be imprisoned not more than 5 years, or fined in the amount set forth in this title, or both, if the offense consists of the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of at least 10 copies or phonorecords, of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $2,500;
(2) shall be imprisoned not more than 10 years, or fined in the amount set forth in this title, or both, if the offense is a second or subsequent offense under paragraph (1); and
(3) shall be imprisoned not more than 1 year, or fined in the amount set forth in this title, or both, in any other case.
If you're using a substantial amount of GPL'd code beyond the rouge developer taking code, that should be enough to know you're willfully infringing. Being a for-profit company should be enough to prove "for commercial advantage". At which point they should be strung up on criminal charges and sent to jail like with SOX regulations. That's how it should be, note there's no minimum amount to make (3) go into effect and send them away for a year, even at a $0 "retail value" as long as you can prove *they* earned money on it.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
RTFM
They convicted SMC, who makes a Skype phone, of the GPL violation because they didn't include the source code with the phone. NOT skype
how can every slashdot mod and user be completely wrong?
Section 6:
"You may convey a covered work in object code form under the terms of sections 4 and 5, provided that you also convey the machine-readable Corresponding Source under the terms of this License, in one of these ways:
a) Convey the object code in, or embodied in, a physical product (including a physical distribution medium), accompanied by the Corresponding Source fixed on a durable physical medium customarily used for software interchange."
The thing is that Skype sold a physical produt (a phone), and according to the wording of the GPL the code needs to be distributed on a durable physical medium with this product.