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Author of ATSC Capture and Edit Tool Tries to Revoke GPL
The author of ATSC capture and edit tool has announced that he is attempting to revoke the licensing of his product under the GPL General Public License. Unfortunately it appears that the GPL does not allow this particular action. Of course in this heyday of lawyers and trigger happy litigators who can tell. What successes have others had in trying to take something they once operated under the GPL and make it private? And the more pressing question, why?
FORK IT!!
Thank God for the GPL!
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
You cannot revoke the license. IANAL, but the FSF makes this fairly explicit:
http://gplv3.fsf.org/comments/rt/summarydecision.html?filename=3D%3C%25%25%20gplv3-draft-1%20%25%3E&id=917
--Sam
P.S Click the link; it's more complicated than I've laid out here.
If you release code under any license that version is still that license. Any new versions can of course be any new license you want, but people can continue to use and indeed fork the old one if that license allows it, which in this case it does.
But the horse is out of the barn insofar as existing code goes, if it's been distributed to anyone. Probably (I don't have the GPL in front of me, but I've worked with it a lot; IIRC the grant of rights is for the duration of copyright and is non-revocable). There's no tool he can use to rescind the rights so granted, and anyone who has a copy of the source from before this change of heart can continue to distribute under the terms of the GPL, as can anyone who gets a copy from one of those distributors.
As the owner of the copyright in the code, he doesn't need the GPL to make derivative works, etc., so anything he works on moving forward he can license how he chooses.
geek. lawyer.
Read the post, that is exactly what he is trying to do. Near the end he writes:
"I don't necessarily agree with everything I say." - Marshall McLuhan
He can in fact DO anything he wants. He just can't UNDO things unilaterally. Its his privilege to cease distributing the code under the GPL. However, he probably* can't unilaterally revoke his PRIOR release of the code under the GPL.
* Courts frown on indefinite contracts and licenses. They can be enforceable but generally must meet more stringent criteria to be legal. Also if he can find a way to void the original grant of license then he doesn't need to revoke it because legally it never existed. For example, if he was under 18 or included a copyrighted work for which he had no permission to grant the license.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
The GPL states that if you are restricted from distributing a work due to other encumbrances, you must refrain from distributing under GPL as well. It's not intended to be a rights-laundering license.
So the question is (or rather my question, since I'm sure actual legal scholars have already debated it to death) if it turns out that someone up the chain did not have the right to distribute under GPL, does that propagate down the chain to all those who unknowingly redistributed software for which the authority to actually do so was never transferred to them by someone who had it?
Yes, it propogates. If the first person was not authorized to distribute the code, then the GPL does not make it valid. As the GPL prohibits licencing encumbered code, it does not apply, thus any distributions were not made under the GPL, and thus those distributions cannot be redistributed under the GPL as the original copy was never validly released under the GPL. Of course, IANAL.
Be relentless!
The author could conceivably release a *new* version under whatever license he chooses. There is nothing saying he has to continue to release under the GPL going forward. But the copies that have already been distributed under the GPL are out there and cannot be revoked. The people who have the code now can continue to legally modify and redistribute it under the GPL and there is nothing he can do about it. If the new version is closed source, people will simply continue developing the GPL'd version, and there is nothing the author can do about it.
You see, in almost all jurisdictions, they seek to harm the least amount of innocent people. So if you purchased something legally and you have no reason to think it might be stolen, then usually the worst that happens is that the original owns has to offer you a fair market price for the return of the item. Now this all goes down hill if you have an idea that it might have been stolen (your no longer innocent).
An example of this might be you walk into a jewelry store. You see a jewel encrusted watch that you purchase. The price seems reasonable but nothing hinting that it would be stolen. Now, if it turns out to have been stolen, there is a good chance that you won't have to part with it. But if you purchased the watch from the trunk of a car in an alleyway at a steep discount, your likely to have to hand it over. In rare occasions, and I'm not sure if this is more then rumor, you can be ordered to let the original owner purchase it from you at your costs or a fair market evaluation (usually whichever is more). They also determine if charges for receiving stolen property would be filed in this manor.
But seeing how this isn't unique physical property, as you mentioned, there are some special circumstances and theft doesn't really fit the bill. I'm thinking if the same idea was applied, it might be up to the owner or the original person who took credit for taking it to figure out how to limit distribution. But I'm not sure if liability would follow something if you weren't notified of the illegality. But copyright works differently so it would be a tough call in how it would be represented.
I'm only bringing this up to indicate that there might be more problems or aspects to the situation then what seems to be on the surface. I think your suggestion of attempting to be a common carrier or something similar with an exception from liability would be the best route if you were going to touch it.
In that case, the author didn't own the copyright, so he never had the right to place the software under the GPL in the first place and the GPL never got revoked.
In this case, the author does seem to own the copyright, so when he put the software under the GPL, it's valid and can't be revoked.
It sounds like in this case he is the sole contributor of the code in question, so he did not gain anything from them. Further, other people's reliance on a piece of software doesn't determine revocability of the license. Microsoft can revoke your license because you pirated Office even if your business relies on it.
What you're talking about, presumably is promissory estoppel. That doesn't apply unless the author made some sort of promise that the code would always remain available under the GPL. While we commonly interpret the GPL to be implicitly "free forever", I don't see any obvious terms in the GPL prior to version 3 that prevent revocation, so certainly no such promise was expressed. Whether it is implied or not is certainly not clear cut, but my gut reaction is to say that no, no such promise was in any way implied, either.
The lack of a revocability clause was fixed in GPL v3 with the clause "All rights granted under this License are granted for the term of copyright on the Program, and are irrevocable provided the stated conditions are met." This clause notably does not appear in prior versions of the license. It should also be noted that although the FSF's lawyers claim that the GPL is irrevocable, one could reasonably assert that the inclusion of such a clause in v3 of the GPL is an indication that the FSF's lawyers are aware that this was a deficiency in the previous license and that irrevocability is neither stated nor implied by the GPL prior to version 3. As such, unless this has been licensed under GPLv2, it is implicitly revocable by the author, with the caveat that if it was distributed with a "v2 or later" clause, it may or may not be, depending on whether the court determines such a substantial change in the license terms perpetrated by a third party (the FSF) to be unconscionable....
In this particular case, the license appears to have changed from "version 2 or later" to "version 2 as published by the FSF" in 2005. This would imply that anyone obtaining it prior to that date could redistribute that rather old version, but only if the "or later" clause holds up. If I were arguing for the author, however, I would note that the GPLv3 process began about then, and that there was, in fact, no later version at the time, and that his change of terms makes it very clear that the author did not intend for it to be licensable under the substantively different terms of GPLv3. IMHO, this significantly diminishes the chances of even pre-2005 copies being redistributable, as that clause was technically revocable at the time (as was the entire license). It may also be significant that the irrevocability clause was not in the license until after 2005. It isn't clear whether the courts would interpret the "or later" clause in the context of licenses available at the time the clause was revoked or "forever", but the former seems more likely since the alternative is the civil equivalent of an ex post facto law, of which Thomas Jefferson had this to say:
Source: Wikipedia
In short, the determination of revocability may depend on whether ex post facto contracts are held to be legal in a particular jurisdiction. My gut feeling, though, is that a GPL license should never be assumed to be a permanent grant of lic
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
I've submitted a project request to SourceForge for a GPLV3 fork of atscap-1.1rc9t. We'll see how it goes.
Realities just a bunch of bits.
*ahem*
4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance.(from GPLv2)
Contracts of sale don't explicitly spell out that they are irrevocable, it's how sales work.
Similarly, you can't reasonably write a license that doesn't require your participation, doesn't record a start date, can be re-entered by the person at will, can be re-granted at will, etc, to be limited in span. It would require future communication to even allow the GPL to be revocable, something it does not require. You need never speak to the author, let alone after accepting the GPL.
You could not reasonably expect to be able to revoke this contract, and thus could not reasonably expect to have it revoked upon you. Many contracts and licenses contain language, and requirements (paying for access, asking permission again in x years, etc). There are clear ways to write these contracts and the GPL contains none of them. Further, the author picked the license, presumably because he understood it and liked it. If this was a case of a user who entered into a GPL-like contract with little knowledge, they might reasonably make the claim that the irrevocable nature was unreasonable. Instead, the author, the only party with the ability to negotiate terms, explicitly picked this license.
Finally, I don't see why a later indication of his changing intent matters. He offered a deal, people accepted it. Case closed. He seems to have decided that he shouldn't have offered that deal, but he did and is bound by it. It's the nature of people to feel buyer's/seller's remorse when they find the true value of things, but sales are still final (with some exceptions).