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German Court Finds Fantec Responsible For GPL Violation On Third-Party Code
ectoman writes "Are firms responsible for GPL violations on code they receive from third parties? A German court thinks so. The Regional Court of Hamburg recently ruled that Fantec, a European media player maker, failed to distribute 'complete corresponding source code' for firmware found in some of its products. Fantec claims its third-party firmware supplier provided the company with appropriate source code, which Fantext made available online. But a hackathon organized by the Free Software Foundation Europe discovered that this source code was incomplete, and programmer Harald Welte filed suit. He won. Mark Radcliffe, an IP expert and senior partner at DLA Piper who specializes in open source licensing issues, has analyzed the case—and argued that it underscores the need for companies to implement internal GPL compliance processes. 'Fantec is a reminder that companies should adopt a formal FOSS use policy which should be integrated into the software development process,' he writes. 'These standards should include an understanding of the FOSS management processes of such third-party suppliers. The development of a network of trusted third-party suppliers is critical part of any FOSS compliance strategy.'"
So they got caught violating an oss license? (TBH they were just being lazy by relying on their supplier's word. You've got to know and own the product you sell.)
Imagine how much shit they'd be in if they'd been caught violating copyright on a piece of closed source software. Ask anyone who's dealt with the BSA to comment on how friendly and fair they are.
This isn't going to make it easier to convince companies to adopt the GPL. It's not necessarily accurate, since Fantec clearly didn't exercise due diligence with their third-party software, but that's what a lot of upper management is going to hear.
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
'A german court thinks so'?
Under very few legal codes is it OK to distribute something that you do not have the appropriate copyright/licence.
Even if you don't investigate properly to find out if you do or don't, that doesn't get you off the hook.
It may alter the penalties, but the fundamental legality isn't really in question, pretty much anywhere.
Raising 'GPL' is a red-herring here - 'Oh - I diddn't realise that machine had an unlicenced copy of windows on it' - is exactly the same case.
A previous employer of mine really really really wanted to offer FOSS support & products as part of their lineup. In the end, the lawyers won, as they couldn't craft a policy that would allow anyone other than a lawyer to make the decisions. This was mostly for GPLv2 and v3, but they got the dev managers completely wound up about all the license types. Mostly this resulted in the company punting on the FOSS idea.
It's not terribly surprising that some small outfit decided to outsource the responsibility, assuming they were in a similar "analysis paralysis" situation. Too bad they did not understand the intent of the licenses and just "do the right thing."
Shit like this. No wonder everything's going BSD.
Did anyone try to work things out with the company?
All stuff like this does is make people afraid of open source.
And why does it seem that all these troublemakers are from Germany?
You know that I care !!
What happens to you !!
And I know that you care !!
For me too !!
Need shelter from GPL !!
Don't do it !!
It's a trap !!
So, because some people decide that they want this code for some silly reason, more companies will just dump gpl outright to limit their exposure to stuff like this?
A third-party firmware supplier could also supply you something that included copyrighted code under some other license (doesn't have to be a free software/open source one) without meeting the requirements of the license. And you would distribute that infringing on the copyright.
Of course if the source code isn't supplied it's harder for the copyright holder to find out.
It appears that when asked to comply with the license by posting the code they actually used, the company lied and said they weren't using iptables.
Contrast that to when I pointed out to Plesk that they were violating the Apache license. They very quickly apologized and posted the code, putting an end to the issue. All they needed to do is post the code that they compiled in order to come into compliance.
The court opinion is six pages, Im guessing three of those are boilerplate. Are there any fluent speakers of German who can read through it and tell us the facts as expressed by the court?
They published code, it got used, they're dealing with it.
What's the problem (apart from them not dealing with it in the way you'd prefer)?
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
It looks like there is an attempt to make an example of this company when perhaps mediation would have been a more suitable approach give they attempted to comply but failed procedurally rather than pursued a policy of wilfully evasion.
Not only did they not exercise due diligence to start with, it appears that when asked to comply with the license by posting the code they actually used, the company lied and said they weren't using iptables. Had they simply said "oops, sorry about that, here's the code we compiled" it would have been resolved with just a few minutes of time.
That second scenario is what Plesk did. I pointed out they weren't in compliance and as an Apache copyright holder I insisted that they comply.
They immediately posted the Apache code they were using, ending the matter. The only effect on them is that now a couple of Slashdot readers know that they did the right thing.
I think that's the big takeaway - when you mess up, don't lie and initiate a cover-up, just fix it and move on.
Many companies simply have a list of open source licenses that are permissible. Apache, MIT, BSD, etc... and GPL in any form is often barred from us
One day, we will be free from tyranny of GPL. One day.
You publish your code. It might get used. Deal with it.
Ah, then by that logic, we can ignore all copyright laws. Eureka!
To be perfectly clear: I would rather a world where labor to create a work is done and paid for once, and the infinite monopoly granted to any who refuse to work without assurance of pay would be applied to content creation as it is in all other labor fields. Yes, I would rather a world where no copyrights existed at all; Where to get more money you would have to do more work instead of sell more copies which are infinitely reproducible and thus valueless: // regardless of cost to create.
Econ101: infinite supply == zero price;
Not monetizing copies but the work which yields their infinite supply instead is actually how the open source model of software production operates. As a car mechanic or home builder or burger joint would: I do an estimate, agree on a price for the new work (code | feature | installation | maintenance | etc.), then do the work once and get paid once for it, then seek more projects to do more work to get paid further. Instead of the insanity of selling ice to Eskimos -- or 1's and 0's to folks with computers -- I get paid proportional to my work.
Conversely, since copyright does exist, I am not free to utilize any other available configuration of 1's and 0's already created and thus in infinite supply. In response to the ridiculous state of copyright whereby I am disadvantaged by my sane work practice and since I do not foolishly work for free then gamble my livelihood in the closed source copyright futures market -- A market where the work can go underpaid or unpaid if the market value didn't match the demand leading to job insecurity, and whereby the publisher middle men can drain the consumers of orders of magnitude more wealth than the cost to create the work (see how that works? The workers are disadvantaged, yes?); In response for being held to these ridiculous laws in order to make a living in society I choose to assert that my end users have all the rights and capabilities granted to any others who would monetize my work. Unable to rid the world of all copyrights, I expect businesses to obey them as I must. I merely expect that the business community enriched with unbounded advantages provided by GPL'd code not disadvantage me by disallowing my future work upon projects such code makes possible.
Now, perhaps you are feckless enough to assume I can simply ignore copyrights if I want. Perhaps you assume a person can have security in their future while their small business breaks copyright laws at will, and allows others to close off future job opportunities by not releasing source code as the contract under which the work was performed would require. Perhaps you would say: "Just deal with bad actors making a less of a viable future for you." Perhaps you would say the blame lies with me for publishing my code in the first place, and ignore all the other compliant businesses which my work bolsters all of at once and I thus thrive upon. Perhaps you would think we allow ever more egregious infringement of the open source copyrights to proliferate while allowing the brutal punishing of end users for minor copyright infringements against proprietary licensors. Perhaps you would say, that I "might get used. Deal with it.", and then ignore that dealing with it is exactly what is being done in TFA...
Shouldn't any company including any third-party code in their products already have a process in place to make sure that code's all properly licensed and they're in compliance? This isn't about GPL or FOSS code. If one of your suppliers includes proprietary code in the firmware they supply to you that isn't properly licensed or you aren't following the license terms don't you have the same problem?
So you would make speculative IP creation impossible. Before you created any IP, you would have to establish contact with all possible customers and agree, and contract, a price for the IP you would create. This was the way the system used to work in the 18th century: Dr Johnson had to line up a number of sponsors before he produced his dictionary. The same applied for music: Bach needed a sponsor for his cantatas etc. The invention of copyright then produced an explosion of publishing: because people could retain the IP of their putative great works, they could publish speculatively (possibly with funding from a publisher), and if indeed it turned out they were great works, they would be repaid for their efforts,
Your proposal would, I think, destroy the literature and magazine industries. Yes, magazines have subscribers. But why should I subscribe if I can get a copy as soon as the magazine is published? How can the editor of a magazine get enough readers to contract for something that they will receive free once the first user has received it? How can the writer who /thinks/ he has a great book make a profit from it when the first review copy can be Torrented for free? Why create any new work of literature? Music is slightly different: a live performance is different from a recording, and some groups distribute recordings for free in order to get fans at their concerts. But, in the days of the Kindle etc., an e-copy of a book is approximately as good as a hard copy.
Literature and music are not the same things as burgers and car repairs. The invention of copyright had a massive positive effect on human culture. Very little of the music you listen to and the books and magazines you read would exist without it. Of course, I am not saying that the existing system is perfect - very far from it. Its application to programs and code is very defective. But in throwing the whole thing out, you are losing the good as well as the bad.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
You publish your code. It might get used. Deal with it.
Ah, then by that logic, we can ignore all copyright laws. Eureka!
I have a question for you. Why is it that you can take literary works and sample from them without violating copyright but GPL'ed code is viral? If they are both based on copyright, why can't you take small samples of code and incorporate it into non-gpl'ed code? Isn't that hypocritical of you? Why is is that you create a derived work from a literary work and by just rewriting it, you have to pay no royalties and yet GPL advocates want the original author to be able to "steal" all of the derived works even it it almost completely refactored into a new codebase? Why is it that you can sample sounds from a song to create a derived work without paying royalties? Why is is that you can create a parody without paying royalties?
What makes GPL'ed code so special? Is it based on copyright or not? In my opinion, if you publish code on a webpage inlined with the text of an article, it cannot be GPL'ed because the reader never had the opportunity to agree before reading the code and it cannot be unseen. In that case, the author is trying to retroactively license it after effectively releasing it in the public domain.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
When a whore makes her cunt publically available on the town square, it has already been violated by herself. She does not prove anything if someone equally sick sticks it in her. They are all just a sick bunch of fucks that should be dealt with in the loony bin.
3rd party code is a fucking disaster no matter where you get it, who wrote it, or who sold it to you. When my company needed a supplemental CRM utility, I wrote it. It works perfectly and is still on version 1.0.0. Our current CRM software is so poorly laid out and coded that they people responsible would get a D if they're lucky in my 2-year technical college advanced programming course. I got the only perfect 105% score in that class in the college's history. What's the difference? In labor hours, it cost my company about $200 for me to write it. The main CRM cost about $45,000.
The court opinion is six pages, Im guessing three of those are boilerplate. Are there any fluent speakers of German who can read through it and tell us the facts as expressed by the court?
The court didn't really go into much of anything, in short it concluded that the source was incomplete which means no rights were granted by the GPLv2 which means their distribution was a copyright violation. That they didn't know about it seems entirely irrelevant to the ruling. In fact it's so totally absent that going by this ruling you might think that if your copyright is violated, you can sue every mirror and every one of them would be guilty, no matter how much good faith belief they might have it's legally distributed.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Or, they could just say "that's too much hassle, let's stop being involved in FOSS development".
If the sample is quite small, you probably could, regardless of the licence, but there would be some legal risks. Just like any other sort of work. For example, pick a popular novel, copy the 1st chapter and write a different story from there. Let's see if you survive the court battle. OTOH, lift a single line and you may be OK. Actually, with just one line, you're much more likely to be OK with GPL software than with a popular novel.
The GPL violations that get people in trouble tend to be a lot more copying than any known interpretation of fair use would allow.
> Why is it that you can take literary works and sample from them without violating copyright but GPL'ed code is viral?
> If they are both based on copyright, why can't you take small samples of code and incorporate it into non-gpl'ed code?
You can. Who said otherwise? Just as you can quote a few sentences from a book, you can copy a few lines from a GPL work.
You can't copy-paste several pages from a typical book, under normal circumstances, and you can't copy-paste several pages from a GPL work without complying with the license.
It may be a mistake to get into a discussion involving fair use on Slashdot since quite a few people here seem to think it means you
can take whatever you want, from anyone you want, and do with it whatever you please. As it sounds like you know, fair use has a
very specific definition. Generally, it means you can use a small sample of a work in a way that does not compete with the original
work, such as quoting a book in a review. I've never heard anyone say you can't quote code in a code review.
> Why is is that you create a derived work from a literary work and by just rewriting it, you have to pay no royalties and yet GPL
> advocates want the original author to be able to "steal" all of the derived works even it it almost completely refactored into a new codebase?
I'm not sure what you're on about here either, but you can't refactor a book either. You can write a new book on the same topic.
You can't re-arrange the paragraphs by cut and paste, add a few words, and call it your own. Same with software. Maybe this
will make it clear:
It's illegal to shoot someone.
is it illegal to shoot someone and give them a Coke?
is it illegal to shoot someone and smile at them?
It's illegal to take my code and distribute it without following the license.
is it illegal to take my code and distribute it without following the license and also add your own code?
is it illegal to take my code and distribute it without following the license and also change my code a little bit?
Adding some of your own code to mine is the same as adding a Coke to the shooting. How would that make it okay?
Following the GPL is nothing more than posting your changes, or giving them to your customers. Is that SO hard?
You insist on selling my work, but can't post your own?
One analogy that I'm particularly fond of in this matter is that if you receive a counterfeit bill and you somehow become aware that it is counterfeit, if you still try to spend it knowing that it is counterfeit, you are actually breaking the law. If you don't know that it's counterfeit, you aren't breaking the law, but you still don't have any legitimate right to try to use it as if it were genuine.
Since this company evidently now knows (or should know) it is in violation of the GPL, they now have a choice... either comply with the terms of the GPL when they distribute the works, or simply cease distributing it completely. Anyone who already received illegitimate copies of the work before they were aware that it was supposed to be GPL'd have no more real recourse than people who might have come into possession of counterfeit currency when there was no knowledge of its counterfeit nature at the time of transfer.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
The GPL is irrelevant. The company used used the software in its media platers had contractual obligations that it failed to full-fill. That these contractual obligations arose from a GPL license is neither here nor there. Despite what idiots think, GPL is NOT a special case in law, or a law of its own. GPL falls within standard legal frameworks.
Of course Fantec lost with their "Not our problem, mate, someone else did the software- go hassle them". How the hell is that a legal argument. Fantec were the ones using and 'selling' software, so it was Fantec that had to meet their 'contractual' obligations with those responsible for creating the software- in this case following the rules of the GPL license.
No court has ruled any GPL license to be invalid in the simple sense. It is the meta restrictions many open-source morons THINK open source licenses place on users that would almost certainly fail in court. Courts are not about upholding some nebulous philosophy. They will, however, respect that which falls under straightforward contract law.
PS the conclusion of this article is garbage. All companies should be expected to honour any contractual terms they previously commit themselves to, without 'special' policies (or people, or departments) that exist merely to serve one very special form of one very small subset of possible contracts/licenses a company may involve itself with. Open source licenses should be straightforward so compliance is also straightforward.
Thank you. I was hoping the court commented on the fact that they continued to infringe after having been notified, when (mostly) rectifying the infringement would have been simple.
If you redistribute GPL code, just post it on your website (including changes that you have made). Why is this so cumbersome to comply with?
The real issue is about the freedom of the code, not to be locked up in a binary blurb which becomes obsolete or makes the device obsolete. Our $15,000 3D printer had Redhat in it. When the company went bankrupt, there was no support. If I was not able to run e2fsck from a shell, we would have owned a $15,000 paperweight.
The same can not be said for the many Palm Pilots, Windows CE devices (iPaq), or even old Macintoshes that I have thrown out.
I agree that the idea of copyright is a good one. I hope most here understand that people who create something like music or software deserve a chance to make a profit before everyone can just download it for free and give nothing back in return. Open source works because there are enough people willing to give back something whether it's a bug report or a few lines of code. Everyone is better off if the software isn't really the thing that is being sold. Now sometimes the software is the thing that is being sold and those who create it 'closed source' deserve to make some money IF people want to use it. In my opinion the problem with copyright isn't the idea, it's a solid and workable method to encourage people and business to create new things. The problem like most problems is that the populace wasn't paying attention and what was a good idea was twisted into a terrible monster just as patents have been. I'm not saying its our fucking fault but I am saying we collectively need to fucking put in some effort to fix it. I have no idea if that's really possible anymore since government has become just as much a monster as copyright and patents, more so even.
Anyway copyright should be limited, No more than 10 years I'd say. If you can't make your money back in that time frame than you fucked up. Patents I think should be something like 5 years or maybe 7. I don't know but I think a sold per-reviewed study could look at all the various industries and pick apart their profit reports and find the sweet spot for both copyright and patents. We have to wash away the greed and absurdness of both these good idea's gone bad. I can't image anyone who really thinks logically that someone should be able to live the rest of their life because they wrote one song 20 years ago. It just doesn't make any fucking sense. There is nothing magic about making music, movies or software. The only difference is once you have made them you have an unlimited supply of them which some people think means it should be worthless and free but if that was the case than no one would bother putting in the time. Sure you'd have some people doing it as a hobby but that isn't the same as doing it as a business and polishing whatever it might be over and over again because you don't have a day job taken up all your time.
I think the US got copyright right way back when but we all closed our eyes for a moment and greed twisted it into something we all hate and despise. The only other thing I have to add is those caught using something that is copyrighted for personal use shouldn't be bankrupted for it. They should have to pay for the product plus a fine of a grand or three. Now people making bootleg copies should face much hasher penalties and corporations that knowingly screw over others should get their asses handed to them since it's going to be rare to catch them in the act.
I'd like to see these problems fixed because I think it would lead to a new renaissance of creativity. Which was the whole point of these laws to begin with.
"Mark Radcliffe, an IP expert and senior partner at DLA Piper who specializes in open source licensing issues, has analyzed the case—and argued that it underscores the need for companies to implement internal GPL compliance processes. 'Fantec is a reminder that companies should adopt a formal FOSS use policy which should be integrated into the software development process,'"
Yeah, because that's gonna work!
No, what's actually going to happen at businesses, they're going to implement a policy of "NO GPL" in their policy. Why? Because it's easier. This is why it's hard for businesses to accept GPL based code. When it now requires I hire a lawyer and consultant to actually figure out if I'm in "compliance", because I may obviously not have all the legal knowledge to figure it all out myself, I'm just not going to bother. Basically this has made the situation even worse and businesses are just going to look at GPL based code as a time bomb waiting to go off on them and refuse to deal with it. I'd rather hire another programmer to rewrite the piece of software I need, as it will be cheaper for me in the long run.
Being ignorant about what the code you're building a product from is no one's fault but the vendor's. I agree 100% with the ruling.
Too many people like to try to play the "I didn't know" card. You're responsible for knowing what you're distributing, especially when you're charging for a product.
I recently worked for a company that had to completely rework a piece of their product line because one developer decided he liked a GPL'd library better than a more-free-for-commercial-use library. It cost them a good three months of development time to rewrite the code with the rejected library.
The developer in question thought free is free; he never read the details of the license, nor asked any of his coworkers about licensing issues. He wasn't fired or anything, but he was reprimanded.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Free (open) is no longer free (as in beer) if compliance costs are high.
This alone will drive companies to import only closed-source or BSD-style licenses where they are not obligated to provide the source and as such are less likely to be sued by someone who stumbles upon a violation that they themselves overlooked.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
did they lie or did they not understand what an iptable was? Remember they outsourced to a third party so they may not have understood what the magic black box of code they were given did.
Is a risk for a company to do. Even after posting all the code they have online for free access, they get sued.
If it was all proprietary, no one would be in court now. Lawyers wouldn't be getting rich.
Stop with the bullshit, AC. You think there was no asking involved? Get a grip.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Nope, sorry. The fsfe.org article suggests that attempts were made to resolve the issue with no success prior to Welte seeking legal action. FANTEC made their own bed, and now they get to lie in it.
Apparently wizard is not a legitimate career path, so I chose programmer instead.
Thanks for the clarification. That was not the picture I first got. :-)
Interesting. That was in 2010, it seems, from this link:
http://lawandlifesiliconvalley.com/blog/
We all know that a world without copyright would not work.
Or more precisely: would be a poor world in terms of art and sciense and technology.
Perhaps you have a car, the software in the car costed perhaps about 100 million dollars to be crafted.
Do you really think anyone is able to pay so much money if he can not leverage it on sales of at least a million cars?
How much does a our days movie production cost? A few hundret millions at least. Without copyright no one would be able to make money from a movie, except those who "pirate" it. So bottom line only hobbyists would make movies. They would need a second job to earn their living.
Sure, you could imagine a world where people watching youtube videas click the like button later and pay a dollar. But is that not comunism which you equally hate?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Good post. In the "United States of Money" people pay a dollar for a burger, which they only can eat ONCE.
But a dollar for a song is to much, which they can listen too for ever.
Most people against copyright are those who never ever invented/crafted/made anything themselves.
OTOH if you payed me 500 million and you had the super cool software idea. I would craft it for you, no problem.
But for 100k? Certainly not, for that price I can work for anyone ...
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
This was the way the system used to work in the 18th century: Dr Johnson had to line up a number of sponsors before he produced his dictionary.
This is completely wrong. The Statute of Anne was introduced in 1710, when Johnson was less than one year old. And Johnson was contracted to write the dictionary by a group of London book-sellers who approached *him* for the task.
Igor Presnyakov stole my hat
Got code from MSDN? Check if you're legally allowed to include it. One guy was convicted for using stuff from the description given in his MSDN documentation.
If it had been BSD licensed code, it would have been equally illegal: it had no attribution on the code and no inclusion of the license terms as required by any of the BSD versions.
The GPL compliance is pretty damn easy.
GPL your stuff and you don't care.
That isn't what's NEEDED, but it's the very very simplest option.
And since you can't actually comprehend that, then you're a retard.
PS if you have so much of a problem with licenses, you must be running with pencil and paper: all software is licensed and if you don't have a lawyer explaining the rights that you have to even use the software, given that you don't understand the GPL, rather indicates that you're a damned pirate and completely illegitimately ripping off other people's work.
I earn a living writing copyrighted works (software), and I'm still against copyright. And it has nothing to do with not wanting to "pay a dollar for a song" - I'm more than happy to do so (as long as it doesn't feed the RIAA).
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There's plenty of good films being made outside of the hugely inflated machines of Hollywood. For example, Amour, winner of last year's Palme d'Or, had a budget of less than $9 million. Pulp Fiction had an even smaller budget ($8.5M).
Movies take millions of dollars because it all goes into their pockets (it's called Hollywood accounting - look it up). If we cut the government monopoly and forced them to compete, budgets would adjust without hurting quality significantly. Maybe you wouldn't have Avatar, but I'm sure we can live without it.
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They had code to configure iptables, sure. Which they shipped with iptables and the rest of Linux. You realize their device needed needed an OS to boot, right?
In 2010, when they were caught before, they signed a letter agreeing they understood that they needed to include an offer for the complete source, as they compiled it. Not some other version of Linux, the version they were using. That's really not complicated - if you ship GPL software, include an offer to provide the source you used.
I hope most here understand that people who create something like music or software deserve a chance to make a profit before everyone can just download it for free and give nothing back in return.
They do have a chance; if they fail, though, that is on them. I view government-enforced monopolies that encourage censorship and cause people to lose real property rights to be a disease.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
We all know that a world without copyright would not work.
How do you know any such thing? Do you have any objective evidence that that is true at all, or are you merely speculating what a world without copyright would be like? No, asking random questions and telling other people to come up with viable business models does not prove anything.
Also, even if that is true, I still view copyright and its ilk as a disease similar to 'solutions' such as the TSA; even if they work (and I do not believe they do), they require me to give up freedoms in order to make them work, and that, for me, means they're not good solutions at all.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Most people against copyright are those who never ever invented/crafted/made anything themselves.
Nice ad hominem.
Fantec claims its third-party firmware supplier provided the company with appropriate source code, which Fantext made available online.
In the same sentence, even.
Odd that Firefox would red-underline the word "online." Also odd that it red-underlines "Firefox."
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
When faced with the possibility of going to court, you spend the necessary time to evaluate your case.
Even if they didn't know what an iptable was, I find it hard to believe that they didn't investigate it quickly after getting the threat.
Anyway, it's all academic. The court doesn't care if they knew or not, they just care if they were in violation of the license.
Well, perhaps knowledge and intent could count when deciding the damages.
How do you know any such thing? Do you have any objective evidence that that is true at all, or are you merely speculating what a world without copyright would be like? ...
There are plenty of history books and alas plenty of evidence
they require me to give up freedoms in order to make them work ...
Which freedom do you give up if there is a copyright?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
It does not matter about "how much money" we talk.
The point is the guy investing his time should have a chance to live from his time, aka earn at least enough money.
Without copyright he can't ...
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
So you have a contract that forces you to give up your copyright and give it to your employer?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
There are plenty of history books and alas plenty of evidence ...
But there is no actual scientific, objective evidence (that I know of) that copyright in this day and age is beneficial. Even if you can point to past societies (or even a few current societies) that didn't have copyright, chances are they were/are vastly different than our current society, so you can't actually prove much at all by using them as examples.
Which freedom do you give up if there is a copyright?
Really? What happens if a website is hosting copyrighted material without permission and someone in power decides they don't like it? Censorship ensues.
But that's just one freedom that is lost. I cannot use my own resources (money, materials, etc.) to replicate copyrighted material without first begging for someone else's permission; this, to me, is an infringement of physical ('real') property rights.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
I earn a living writing copyrighted works (software), and I'm still against copyright.
To be honest that doesn't mean much unless you are financially at risk if the software does not generate revenue. If you are paid an hourly rate or a salary you are not at risk. You can move to a new company where are new group of people who are at risk will go into debt paying you.
The unemployment rate in my country for my age bracket is 38%. The idea I can "just" move to a new a company is not realistic.
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It is not an infringement on your physical / real properties rights. Just because you own 100 acres of land you can not replicate that with your money/materials. ... now we get close to the point. You can not write / imagine a story worth making a movy of. But you are able to "take" a story and make a movie of? And you want to do that without paying the author of the story?
You have to buy it from someone else (or invade a country and steal it).
You have a shiny house and want to build a new one? You need permission of the authorities to do that on your ground you actually own. Oh, if you don't own enough ground it falls back to above.
You want to replicate a car? Well it might not be covered by copy right but by patents and other IP laws. Well, yes they are similar anoying as copyright is.
Nevertheless you imagine you had particular rights (or options / possibilities ) in the material world, and not having them in the IP world you feel you got robbed of those rights.
Fact is: you have no such rights or options in the material world. Nevertheless you feel robbed.
Why do you need the permission to replicate some copyrighted material? What exactly do you want to do with that permission or that material? What is so hard to simply invent something similar with your own brain? Wow
Well if you where in the movie business you would always pay authors for their stories.
You simply "imagine yourself" being "deprived" of "rights" (priviledges) or "options" you would not have in the real world anyway.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
It is not an infringement on your physical / real properties rights.
Of course it is.
Fact is: you have no such rights or options in the material world. Nevertheless you feel robbed.
And I think many laws need to be changed. What of it? You pointlessly listed all those examples and assumed I agreed with all those restrictions (and you could easily find differences between many of those and copyright infringement if you thought about them for two yoctoseconds), but that's not necessarily the case.
Wow ... now we get close to the point.
No, your pointless ad hominems aren't even close to the point. I feel it is arrogant for you to assume that no 'creators' want copyright abolished and that everyone who does want copyright and its ilk abolished must not be an innovator.
You simply "imagine yourself" being "deprived" of "rights" (priviledges) or "options" you would not have in the real world anyway.
I have no idea what your point is. I'm already well aware that there are laws and rules that aren't to my liking, so why go through the trouble of stating the obvious? Obviously, I think these things need to be changed.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Then try changing them.
And also work on recreating how business and life works.
To abolish all those laws and still have a life worth living we need to live in a "Star Trek" world.
Where energy is free, people get housing food and cloth for free and only those who want do work and everyone can use / reuse / adapt everything.
As long as the world is driven by money, and the need to work and make money it will be very difficult to get rid of IP laws and other property laws.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
To abolish all those laws and still have a life worth living we need to live in a "Star Trek" world.
Simply incorrect. And I already mentioned that there are obvious differences between many of the examples you gave and copyright infringement.
As long as the world is driven by money, and the need to work and make money it will be very difficult to get rid of IP laws and other property laws.
No one is suggesting we get rid of property law entirely. The only thing suggested was that we get rid of government-enforced monopolies that impose artificial scarcity, encourage censorship, and infringe upon real property rights.
As long as the world is driven by money, people need to come up with their own business models and not use government thugs to enforce artificial scarcity.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Sigh, then describe some of those business models ...
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Crowdfunding, for one. But it is not up to me to find business models for these people. That's partly what the 'free market' is about. I'm not going to hand people business models just because they can't find one themselves; that's up to them and only them.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Lol, so you have no idea about what you are talking.
Good that you admitted it now.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Actually, I do. If you want a working business model, you're going to have to find it yourself; this is typically true in a free market environment. I hear some people talk about entitlement when they speak of copyright infringement, but how entitled do you have to be to seriously expect that other people come up with business models for you? That's your job, and if you fail, it's on you.
Good that you admitted it now.
Just like how a minute ago you claimed that 1 + 1 = 3, right? Oh, wait... that didn't happen.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
There are not many working business models.
I would say 90% of the world follows the same business model, and the other 10% have 3 or 4 others.
Business models have nothing to do with free market.
If you think there are business models (especial in the creative sector) that work without copyright/ip laws then publish them and farm in your nobel price for economics.
As long as you have nomsuch idea/plan your are just hot air.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Business models have nothing to do with free market.
But government-enforced monopolies that impose artificial scarcity and infringe upon real property rights sure do; in fact, they have little to do with the free market.
If you think there are business models (especial in the creative sector) that work without copyright/ip laws then publish them and farm in your nobel price for economics.
I don't need to; business owners are responsible for finding them.
As long as you have nomsuch idea/plan your are just hot air.
This entire comment is just an eyesore.
There is no "hot air" here. The world would remain even without copyright, even if your delusions say otherwise. Even if it were true that copyright encouraged innovation, I'm not the type of coward who sells out everyone's freedoms in exchange for something (whether that be safety or increased innovation). I'm against the TSA, copyrights, patents, free speech zones, and a host of other nonsense that governments do to infringe upon people's freedoms, and frankly, I highly doubt anything you say could change that (especially since you just keep asking me to pointlessly come up with business models for other people, for some strange reason).
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!