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Strong Court Ruling Upholds the Artistic License
dilute writes "The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (an authoritative court that normally deals with patent law), has issued a strong ruling (PDF) upholding the Artistic License in a copyright dispute between the developers of the Java Model Railroad Interface (JMRI), and Kamind, a company that used portions of DecoderPro to develop a competing product. The product at issue was DecoderPro, an open source project released on SourceForge under the Artistic License, for interfacing with model railroad control chips. Kamind used a number of DecoderPro files in developing its product, Decoder Commander. However, Kamind did not comply with the Artistic License in a number of respects, including attribution, copyright notices, tracked changes or availability of the underlying standard version." Read on for more, below.
Dilute continues: "The lower court denied relief, saying that the Artistic License merely imposed 'contractual' promises, and that a violation did not constitute copyright infringement (any contract-based relief would probably have been meaningless). In a strong ruling, the Federal Circuit found that the Artistic License is legally enforceable, that its terms constituted 'conditions' for reliance on the license, and consequently that a violation of those conditions would put the violating product outside the license and thus make the violator a copyright infringer, potentially liable for an injunction. The case lays out a clear and compelling description of the rationale for open source, and reflects a complete willingness by the court to lend the force of law to these licenses."
Reader ruphus13 point to Lawrence Lessig's commentary on the ruling; Lessig calls it "huge and important news," and notes that the reasoning is generalizable to the GPL and other Free software licenses, as well.
In the US at least. Has there been any similar cases in Canada or other countries outside the US?
Going on means going far
Going far means returning
Yes.
is a legal distinction
IIRC, the original ruling that the lower court made in order to claim that the artistic license was powerless, was that no money changed hands therefore there were wookies on endor or something equally inane.
>or is a legal distinction made between license for personal use vs. license for redistribution?
Yes, there is such a distinction from the start -- copyright protects distribution, not use.
You need a specific contract if you want your license to speak to use. For distribution, you
reserve all rights under copyright law, license or no license.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
I believe you mean "distribute", not "use".
how to invest, a novice's guide
Katzer and company really need to be smacked down.
On their web site, they try to create the impression that they had their own solution and didn't copy any code from the open source guys, but, then, in court, they fully admit that they in fact, did that.
So, they stole a bunch of code, made some money on it, then, they admitted it in court, but continue to lie to the public about what they did.
I mean, how sickening is that?
This is my sig.
EULAs tend to restrict your rights, to less then what is available under copyright law. (E.g. many of them would say that you aren't allowed to make back-up copies, or to reverse engineer the software, both of which are allowed (at least) under Australian copyright law (I believe).)
However, free software licences enhance what you are allowed to do. Enabling, for example, you to re-use software in your own work.
However, these licences tend to say that you have to follow certain conditions if you wish to have this extra freedom. The most common being attribution.
In the case mentioned, one actor (company or person, whichever), took code from another actor's project and used it without permission in a manner which wasn't permitted by the licence for that code.
If there was no licence for the code, then that would be a strict copyright violation. There was a licence, and reuse was allowed, under certain conditions. However, because these weren't followed, bang copyright violation (as if there wasn't a licence at all).
Insert standard disclaimer here.
I wank in the shower.
IANAL-- It's stronger copyright law - but for 'our' side I guess.
It's not stronger copyright law, the way copyright works has not changed at all, it's just an already existing copyright being honoured by the federal court, after for some reason a lesser court refused to honour it. I could probably explain better if I RTFA but we all know that's not going to happen
On the contrary, the issue being decided here is copyright law. To say that the Artistic License is "stronger than copyright law" makes no sense, as it relies on copyright law for its enforcement. In essence, the court ruled that the Artistic License works the same way as the GPL (even though the GPL makes it explicit and the Artistic License doesn't):
(GPL version 3, section 9; emphasis mine)
The argument made by the emphasized text is the same argument that the JMRI people made here (and that the judge agreed with).
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Yeah, the GPL was upheld in Germany as valid.
The truth be known, if the FOSS licenses were held to be unenforceable, then most of the publication, etc. licenses that the record labels, book publishers, etc. live by would also be so- and NOBODY in that space wants that.
These licenses are NOT EULAs. They're all largely publication and derivative works licenses- with the royalties being whatever the terms of the license requires for being able to publish the stuff to downstream recipients.
No license?
No publication. No derivative works.
You publish or make a derivative work without the license to do so, you're guilty of willful infringement of the rights holders. That carries a much, much nastier penalty than accidental ones and it's something Verizon and Actiontec did NOT want to face the music on in court- so they settled out of it once it got filed.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
I'm not trying to say the license is stronger than copyright law. I was trying to say that by making the license more than a contract they've made copyright law stronger, broader - however it would be best put. In fact, if I understand you correctly, I was trying to say what you just said.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
You think that, but you should note that this is an appellate decision: JMRI actually lost the first time!
Granted, if you read the original court's decision it's obvious that the judge didn't understand the issue at all -- which is not necessarily the judge's fault, as JMRI's case wasn't argued very competently in my opinion -- but it still happened.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Exactly: it isn't one!
Yep, this is a fairly serious bug in those software's installers. I keep meaning to file it on OO.o's tracker...
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
This wouldn't be an EULA situation, it's a license issue on the code itself. Had the party being sued been an end user it would have been a very different situation. But they took the code, incorporated it into a product and sold that product.
Along the way they apparently violated the licensing on the code on multiple fronts and are now likely to be taken to task for doing so.
It's a much easier case to make, once you've managed to subpoena the code than enforcing a EULA would be. For instance you don't have to spend time and effort trying to figure out who agreed to it.
USC Title 17 Chapter 1 section 117 paragraph (a) grants permission to make certain copies, eg. those neccesary for running a computer program. To be technically picky about it, it says that it is not an infringement of copyright to make those copies or to authorize having them made.
It's NOT a EULA.
The GPL doesn't cover USAGE (In fact, it explicitly prohibits the placing of any restrictions on usage by downstream recipients...)- it covers a little different thing.
It covers publication and derivative works.
If you give a copy to someone else, you're publishing a copy.
If you make a modification to the protected work and then give that to someone else, you're making a derivative work.
Neither is usage in the eyes of Copyright Law.
If you fail to abide by the terms under which you are given permission to do so by the various rights holders, you don't have their permission and thereby are guilty of straight Copyright Infringement.
Willful acts thereof are viewed in a very dim light by the Courts and the Law.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Eeehhh....
In-memory copies count as copies. But, if you are the owner of a copy of computer software, then you can (under 17 U.S.C. 117(a)) copy it into computer memory for the purpose of running it without infringing.
The reason that EULAs are important is because software publisher asserts that you are not an owner of a copy. And, if you're not an owner of a copy, then Section 117(a) doesn't apply. There have been court decisions on both sides of this one.
As for your arguing about temporary buffer copies, those aren't "fixed" under the copyright act and thus are not infringing copies. (See the recent Cablevision case for a longer discussion). Your other cases (such as store-and-forward email) are cases either of an implied license or where there was no volitional act. (You're not liable if somebody else causes your computer to make a copy and you don't even know that copy exists.)
Copyright Infringement actions are decided under strict liability -- the "intent" of the person doing the copying doesn't matter.
What difference does it make when "using" the software entails making a copy to your hard drive, and then another copy into ram, and then another copy into cache? Using it entails copying it.
It makes a HUGE difference, since US copyright law specifically exempts copies that are necessarily made in the normal course of use. Those copies cannot legally be considered copyright infringement.
Specifically, the law says:
Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy. â" Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided:
(1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner, or
(2) that such new copy or adaptation is for archival purposes only and that all archival copies are destroyed in the event that continued possession of the computer program should cease to be rightful.
Emphasis mine, of course.
So, the GP is absolutely correct: EULA's that try to impose additional restrictions BEYOND what copyright law imposes must be interpreted as contracts, and there must be some consideration paid to the seller that justifies the buyer giving up those rights that he or she would otherwise have.
Copyleft licenses of various sorts, on the other hand, impose no restrictions that aren't already imposed by the law. Instead, they just grant permission to make copies and derived works, subject to some requirements.
In both cases, mere normal use of the program, even if that involves making copies on a hard drive, in RAM, etc., are not copyright infringement.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
I have no idea how this got modded insightful. It doesn't even make sense.
You have two concepts confused: Rights are reserved, not granted, but contracts require consideration.
Contracts have nothing to do with it. Copyright does indeed deal with reserved rights--the creator's rights. Any right not granted by copyright or by independent agreement is reserved by the owner. Copyright does not supersede contractual rights; indeed, the entire point of contract law is to create relationships outside of or contrary to statutory law.
A contract is not valid without
consideration (e.g., "money changing hands"), but rights are reserved by default.
What does this even mean? Consideration is one way of validating a contract (but not the only way), and this has exactly nothing to do with reserved rights.
A license is a grant of rights. It is a promise not to sue. That's it. The GPL is not a license, because it says, "I promise not to sue IF you do x, y, and z"--that is a license agreement. It contains a license, but it too requires assent. Failure to provide that assent results in failure to attain the needed license, thus placing a person in a position of copyright inflation. The attempt to characterize it here as mere breach of contract is an attempt to limit potential judgments, as contractual damages are far less than statutory copyright damages.
It is not a binary situation. Finding copyright infringement does not preclude breach of contract, and in fact the two usually go hand in hand in licensing disputes. It is possible to infringe the copyright without breaching the contract, and it is also possible to breach the contract without committing copyright infringement.
Contracts require consideration, and that means that a contract must have benefits going to each party. This may involve money, but a contract that grants benefits to one party, but not the other is considered to have been forced, and is therefore not enforceable.
I did not read the article, but it appears the court decided that this is not a contract issue as the lower court said, but rather a copyright issue, and that Kamind apparently violated it.
no big sig
This holding wouldn't be controlling outside the Federal Circuit, but it'd be considered very persuasive. Basically having two Appeals Courts make contradictory rulings is one of the fastest ways to get the Supreme Court to take the appeal and resolve the conflict, and the only constant there is that if that happens at least one of the Appeals Courts will be told they were wrong. So Appeals Courts try not to make contradictory rulings. And District Court judges try not to make rulings that their controlling Appeals Court will have to overturn. Seeing as how the Federal Circuit appeals court isn't the 9th Circuit one, I'd expect most district courts to take their cue from this ruling. Especially given how clear the CAFC ruling is. Few judges would like to explain in a ruling why they're disregarding the plain language used in a license despite an Appeals Court ruling saying that that language means exactly what it says.
Contracts require consideration, and that means that a contract must have benefits going to each party.
No. Consideration is not benefit.
a contract that grants benefits to one party, but not the other is considered to have been forced
No. A contract involving acts on one party may be unilateral or gratuitous, but being "forced" has nothing to do with whether the contract is a good deal for both parties. Voluntary entry into an agreement not requiring unlawful activity is not "forced".
I did not read the article, but it appears the court decided that this is not a contract issue as the lower court said
Then perhaps it would be best to refrain from speculation, since that is not what the opinion says at all. The operative language is "only for breach of contract", which is not the issue. The issue is the availability of copyright infringement as a cause of action, wherein the lower court erred in rejecting the theory.
Once again, it is not either/or.
Whoa there, champ. Read Section 9:
So either the lawyers who wrote the GPL were wrong, or you are. (Guess who I'm siding with.) Also, see my other post about the "copy/install/compile is copyright infringement" argument.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Don't worry, with this ruling he will. He's now eligible for disgorgement of profits, statutory damages, punitive awards, legal fees and expenses. I imagine the legal expenses alone is going to be rather massive but tack in a few statutory damages at $150K per violation (for every single file they stripped the copyright notice from which exceeds 300 files by my reading of the JMRI site and possibly each of these violations applies for each distribution of Katzer's product so if he sold 10 copies he's on the hook for 3000 violations of copyright). Jacobsen's not going to end up with millions but my guess is Jacobsen is going to get back every dime he spent probably three times over and he won't be paying any legal bills. My hope is they can destroy Katzer financially, his behavior is reprehensible and he should be punished for it.
Keep following the Saga though, this Katzer guy is as slimy as SCO. He'll probably try to fend off any judgement with Bankruptcy just like SCO.
Idiot. The license says "if you do not pick your nose, you are allowed to do what you like with the software - copyright law does not apply". If you then pick your nose, the license is invalidated and copyright law, as decided by Congress, applies. The license is not deciding what copyright infringement is, you moron, the license is granting exemption from copyright law provided you follow its terms.
I can't make a license that says, "you can copy this software provided you don't pick your nose" and then sue you for copyright infringement for picking your nose.
You absolutely can. Absent a license, I have no right to distribute your work. If you grant me a license to copy if I agree to certain conditions, and I fail to meet those conditions, then the license is void. At that point, the baseline default of "no copies allowed" as set forth in copyright law is in force.
The court was absolutely correct. When Kamind failed to meet the conditions of their license, it was revoked. From that moment on, they were distributing JMRI illegally.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
And the courts have ALREADY made rulings that apply copyright infringement to occurring in an unauthorized 'disk to RAM' copy made by that WoW cheat program. (glider?)
Nope, Glider was only a problem because the copying to RAM wasn't part of the software's normal operation. Copying to RAM when you use the software is allowed, as the other commenters have pointed out.
The title of this article should be "Strong Court Ruling Upholds Copyright Law", which isn't really surprising. There's nothing in here that means that any arbitrary one-sided set of claims (e.g., an EULA) suddenly becomes legally enforceable.