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?

Comments

May I be the first to say

[kimvette]

FORK IT!!

Thank God for the GPL!

Re:May I be the first to say

[cas2000]

> All he has to do is make a one line diff and take it closed source.
> Now it's not under the GPL. Until he does that, any copies randomly floating
> around are under the GPL until his copyright expires

wrong.

the new version, with the one line change, is under a new license.

the old version, without the change, is still under the GPL and always will be. The GPL can not be revoked, although (assuming that all copyright holders agree) there is no requirement that future versions have to be under the GPL. if there's only one copyright holder, then he or she can change the license on future versions at will. but they can not revoke the GPL on previous versions.

when the software was originally licensed under the GPL, the author said "here's what you can and can't do with it". note that there was no clause in there for revocation of that license, it was granted in perpetuity. that is a deliberate and well-publicised feature of the GPL.

for those who might like to argue that the GPL is a form of contract (a dubious proposition in itself) and contracts require value to be exchanged by both parties in order to be valid, therefore the GPL "contract" is invalid, consider this: value HAS been exchanged in both directions. the recipient receives the value of the source code, the author receives the value of open source critique and commentary as well as the value of free distribution and publicity.

Re:May I be the first to say

[gd2shoe]

No. The copyright holder is not bound by the GPL.
The copyright holder is bound by copyright law.
Other people who have copies are bound by the GPL (and copyright law).

The issue at hand here is really if: he can give people permission to redistribute using the code, and then change his mind after they've already received it under that agreement. If I had a copy, then he has already given me permission to redistribute without checking with him. He's now saying that only he can give permission to redistribute. What if I never check with him? He didn't require me to before. How am I expected to know? Am I bound by his new decession, or may I argue that I have received permission and am relying on it?

The "three years" clause that you mentioned only applies to someone distributing a binary without the source.

There is nothing in the GPL that says that he is obligated to do anything once he has released the code. He may cease to distribute entirely; he may distribute under a different licence of his choosing. The only question is: does copyright law allow him to revoke such a permission once granted?

IANAL

Re:Gee, what a *GREAT* idea

[zippthorne]

Actually, there's a good question in there.

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?

Re:Could fuel anti GPL fire

[Waffle Iron]

Why would it raise concerns about the GPL in particular? If the GPL can be revoked after the fact, then *any* software license (proprietary, FOSS or whatever) could likewise be revoked. Any 3rd party code of any kind in commercial applications would be at similar risk.

Re:Gee, what a *GREAT* idea

[MarkRose]

Actually, there's a good question in there.

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.