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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.
; Lessig calls it "huge and important news," and notes that the reasoning is generalizable to the GPL and other Free software licenses, as well.
As well as most EULAs I suppose... or is a legal distinction made between license for personal use vs. license for redistribution?
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
Sadly, I will sleep better at night knowing that there is some favorable precedent regarding open licenses.
Traditionally, copyright owners sold their copyrighted material in exchange for money. The lack of money changing hands in open source licensing should not be presumed to mean that there is no economic consideration, however. There are substantial benefits, including economic benefits, to the creation and distribution of copyrighted works under public licenses that range far beyond traditional license royalties.
This too:
The copyright holder here expressly stated the terms upon which the right to modify and distribute the material depended and invited direct contact if a downloader wished to negotiate other terms. These restrictions were both clear and necessary to accomplish the objectives of the open source licensing collaboration, including economic benefit... Copyright holders who engage in open source licensing have the right to control the modification and distribution of copyrighted material.
Good to know the court system can still work!
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
I believe you mean "distribute", not "use".
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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.
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
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
"You" is you, if you're thinking about copying or distributing this Package.
That reads like someone tried to satirize the "legalese" present in most licenses rather than create a working license for themselves. Also, the license is automatically binding for anyone who is thinking about using the license? Compare to a Creative Commons license, where
"You" means an individual or entity exercising rights under this License...
You'd think programmers would know better than to let ambiguities like that by. (And incidentally, some people have similar concerns about the language in the GPL: it has a conspicuous lack of "legalese", which might make it easy to read, but also risks ambiguity popping up in a court case down the road.)
This is rail nice. I do believe open licenses are at a critical junction. Kamind certainly bit off more than they can choo.
"Free" might aquire yet another meaning, something like "Free as in a Dollar".
It might have to do with the "Consideration Exchanged" part of contract law. I'd forego a dollar's worth of benefit for software to slide by that rule on the software side. "A Dollar's benefit" could be interpreted like "A Dollar's worth of NYCL's time"... which would be a reply to a comment here.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I want to know if Bob Jacobsen got his $30,000 (legal fees paid to the scum suckers) back.
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.
Reading the tortured history of this case was a real eye-opener. I hadn't really thought about the lengths that some people will apparently go to steal from the community, lie to regulators, and engage in what must have been a very expensive legal fight.
You've got to wonder what the motivation is. Is there really that much money in model train software? Or is this someone who has money to throw at whatever they want?
Dig around a bit... and you find some interesting things.
It seems Katzer and his parnter have made a sizable donation to the University of Oregon in the tune of "$1.25 million for computer labs, software and a technology endowment fund." That's a nice chunk of change to throw around. Where does it come from?
It's interesting to note that Katzer shows up in a number of roles from software development to a model train store. I suspect ongoing concerns are something along the lines of his LinkedIn profile:
Matt Katzerâ(TM)s Summary
KAMIND Associates delivers Microsoft solutions for small business customers since 1998. We solve your IT problems with the following solutions â" eCommerce sites for samll business using Microsoft Commerce Servers, Microsoft Small Business Server and Microsoft Retail Management System (POS) Solutions for specialty retailers. 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.
That seems pretty straight forward. But there's some other oddities out there. Take this blog entry of a Microsoft manager for example:
Matt Katzer runs an ISV called KAM Industries. They build software for the REALLY big railroads - railroad yard automation, engine automation, that kind of thing. Software that makes really big, heavy stuff move when and where itâ(TM)s supposed to. Matt told me that they also do similar stuff for model railroads â" HO, N, and O-scale stuff. They can completely automate, and simulate very complex setups.
If that werenâ(TM)t cool enough, Matt has built all this on top of Microsoft technologies - .NET Framework, the Compact Framework, WMI (okay, not REALLY MS tech, but it counts), XML, Windows Server 2003, etc.
Eh, what? Is this more than model trains or was Katzer simply exaggerating to impress?
Side note is a comment on the blog:
Matt Katzer was my first manager at Intel and the reason that I moved out to Oregon to work for Intel.
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
Agreed! I did read through the entire judgement --I figured I'd take my turn as the 0.1% of Slashdot to read the article so that the rest of Slashdot didn't-- and here are some comments.
This judge. Jeffrey S. White, was surprisingly familiar with free and open source licenses, mentioning the GNU GPL and the MIT OpenCourseware licenses. I wonder if he already had some familiarity, or whether it was the amici curiae from the Creative Commons Corporation and from the Wikimedia Foundation? Anyway, good job on all of them!
This judgement reminded me of why it was important to get advice from lawyers. Something that seemed plain-as-day to me turned out to be a focal point of debate. I've always assumed that, with a license like the GPL or other open source licenses, if you don't abide by the GPL, then the GPL doesn't apply --it's as if the GPL didn't exist-- and now you've violated copyright law. In this case (which is not GPL but the Artistic License, it wasn't so obvious: the defendants argued that the license itself freed the defendants from copyright law, and if the defendants then violated the license, then it was just a license violation (contract law) rather than copyright violation. This was how the defendants successfully argued at the Northern California District Court. Fortunately, the Appeals court overrode this, taking into account the spirit of the Artistic License and keeping in mind the other open source licenses. But it was a point I never thought would be questioned.
As the judgement points, the difference between license violation and copyright violation is especially important because, with license (contract) violation, you only get economic damages in return. If you write F/LOSS, then usually you can't really say that you've lost a million bucks because they stole your software. But this judge recognized the non-economic benefit of licensing under F/LOSS, and specifically said,
In other words, "money isn't everything".
If the law decided that the problem was license violation, then Microsoft could violate F/LOSS, and then toss it a few coins and say, "Sorry --here's some spare change for your troubles." With the law deciding that it's a matter of copyright and not contract violation, the judge can tell Microsoft, "I don't give a rat's ass how much money you have --stop what you're doing or you will be caned."
I'm sure the GNU GPL, having been thoroughly vetted by Eben Moglen, has clearer language than the Artistic License, which prevents such loopholes, but it's still good to see a judge that understands the issues. Judge White has remanded the case --I think this means that he's sent the case back to the District Court saying, "Go try this case again --you didn't do your homework properly the first time."
(Incidentally, was this the same judge that Slashdot covered a year or so ago where he lambasted the lawyers on both sides for not doing their homework? Name sounds familiar somehow, but I can't place it.)
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
While discussing (and rejoicing) in this decision, I'd suggest we all say thank you to Richard Stallman for his work on "copyleft" licensing. It is possibly the single greatest innovation in modern software development and, without it, our world would be a darker, more depressing place.
RMS, you rock dude!