you are right except for one thing... I think it should be depressing, the one point that is true is that there -should- in fact be a reciprocal feeling of dedication from the company. People give a lot to work for a company, they live in a particular place and their whole life depends on that, even if an employer says, "don't feel dedicated or lawyer, this is just your job", you would still be obligated to it because so much of one's life is set up supporting it. There is not, in fact, always some other job to go to.
A lot of people just do workaday... but they fool themselves, you cannot give that much time to something and think it's separate. Time is life. A second of time is your life/soul/only currency. If you zone out, that's just psychology, you are still there being zoned out. You will feel the zombie. Most people fine a stress reducing ballance, and root for their company with much the same enthusiasm as a sports team, by which I mean constantly bad mouthing it's mistakes and still wishing that it wins.
Of course, companies do demand loyalty and fidelity... to the limit of the law generally. Some companies try to tighten the belt without letting people go. Some companies value their good employees, and find ways to eliminate bad employees, and want their employees to be well compensated and insured. We need a situation where all companies are like that.
It got the weekend, the forty hour week. (Unless your exempt). It got rid of Monarchy (unless you're british etc.) It got national health care (well, if you are british). Blaming stuff on other people has helped in a lot of cases.
He said that dedication to a company deserves reciprocal dedication from a company. Is there a problem with that in particular?
it's probably a matter of the Japanese crash. Fifteen years ago they were promising whatever, generation 7, or 4 or 5, some number. They were pushing everything past it's esoteric limits. Then, humbled for a few years. I can't wait until Japan is back on track.
I think a person does have to be trained in their tools, but a carpenter doesn't have to know how to smith his own tools to be an expert carpenter, so it's a ballance.
However, my comment is just about being held to your own hype. Oh, it's all nice to be Microsoft and not say a word when your customers think you've invented the internet and do one better, help to give that impression, happilly play loose with details when it makes it seem to the masses that you are the great benefactor of this technological cornocopia, all possible because you have the brand at the top of the stack where the users can read it without a screwdriver. Yes, that's nice. But then, of course, you SHOULD NOT be suprised when people come and blame you that their logitech mouse is broken.
Same thing with Microsoft security. Yes, I agree, it's the admin's fault. But then, after more than a decade selling your product because "it's just a click" and down playing the need to know... um... what the fsck you need to click and why, like that you click makes it easier, easy enough for a monkey, well, you sort of ARE to blame for stupid admins. You actively stupidated them. You promoted their managers to seek out the stupidest of them. In unix you don't have that. You have companies like Sun that tell you to have an expert admin, that expect and admin to follow patches, etc, so on the unix side you can say, "get a better admin"... on the windows side you have to say, "ok, yeah, we were full of shit, you DO have to know what the machine is doing and even a little of the 'how' in order to administer it".
I'm learning how things work in the real world, that's why I know that the moment that Linux has no advantage over Windows is the moment everyone probably switches to Linux for the reasons that used to be valid.
I think this might be just deserts for the fact that Microsoft tries to take credit for everything good about the PC platform... you'd think Microsoft invented it and every invention associated with it.
Of course, like you, I don't think SCO's right. Well, I don't think it's substantially right; I think there's so much error, and the error goes both ways. If SCO survives this (and thanks to IBM, it won't), Linux will be freed, mostly by declarations of public domain and partly by removing SCO code.
well we agree on the most important thing then.
but not on the rest. If SCO's IP is in linux, and it's still royalty generating (b/c IBM etc. put it in there), then yes, we all have to stop using it. If the only way to do that is to stop using Linux, yup, you have to stop using linux (of course, not until a judge says so). But in reality, if SCO's IP is in there, the judge will give time and information to allow it being removed. The result, a patch for your linux machine.
If you really need the feature that the patch removes (which I doubt, I don't think it will remove anything... there is no way SCO owns JFS, etc.) then you are in trouble. But that's just the way it goes.
Also I think that you mistake SCO's, or any companies, responsibilities. Companies have to make the right motions. They can get away with being insincere, but not so insincere that it's provable they are not really complying with something. If you sue another company based on facts ABC, the judge will and can and should look to see if you yourself are acting on the conviction of those beliefs. When the SEC looks into the stock sales, it will look to see if SCO really believed it's argument. If it really studied the issues and made reasonable comments to the press based on real knowledge. So SCO's communications to it's users is important. The GPL clearly says it's not valid in the circumstance SCO claims. It's black and white. SCO has to inform it's users that it did not have authority to distribute that code, SCO claims no one did.
Why would SCO's action cause everyone to stop using it? SCO just has to specify what IP and linux users would have to remove it. How long would that take?
And the court should also make sco provide a program or patch that removes their patented IP from their own distributions. Or, just grant the IP.
your mistake in this context is that you have forgotten, the GPL does not apply. The GPL, which you need to re-read, specifically section 7, specifically does not allow itself to be commingled with royalty generating code. There is a lot of potential controversy about what constitutes commingling. But in this case, code in the kernel, it's clearly commingled if the accusation is true (SCO is bound to represent it's own current argument in it's actions).
So, the code is not covered by the GPL. Therefore, by copyright, the copy is unlicensed, the distribution was illegal, and the copies must be "returned" (stopping use and destroying copies).
Once the GPL no longer applies you don't have to think about the GPL. It's not GPLed software at that point. It's just "pirated software".
it's not often I find someone as persistent to a conversation as I am. So, nice to anonymously meet you.
"Possessing stolen physical goods is a criminal offense while mere possessing of goods which infringe on copyright is not."
This is true, and it argues for your side of this. My analogies are just that. I persist in calling things illegal copies because that's a common language and it's not misleading. You get in trouble for having them just as with stolen property, in much the same way (which is to say, some allowance is given for innocent possession in either case). But I don't know of any case where such possession was sanctioned, and the IP was allowed to remain at the unlicensed recipient.
The only sense in which anyone is fined for possession is in the case that possession is deemed by a court to be prima facie evidence of infringement (read, illegal distribution).
this is all I'm saying. It's always a cause for that. The code is only distributed under one license, the GPL, and it doesn't apply. That is prima facea evidence of illegal distribution.
Think of this other example, SCO has revoked AIX. When the judge rules that this is SCO's right... does IBM get to keep AIX because when the distribution occured to IBM, they were in compliance with the license, they were legal at the moment of distribution, they keep the code? What about IBM AIX customers, do they just keep the code, regardless of what happens to IBM? Only if SCO lets them. IBM would have to negotiate something to stay in business and protect it's customers. It would owe it's customers money if it allowed AIX to be lost because IBM has indemnified them in such situations. But that downstream distribution would be tainted.
You are talking about where liability stops, where damages are involved. But in terms of keeping the code, EVERYONE downstream has to give up the code. If they keep it that just means they are getting away with something usually called software piracy.
What I am denying is that a copy per se can be legal or illegal.
I understand and agree. But having a copy is evidence of a distribution. So we call that an illegal copy as shorthand, because it is the same thing. Even if the court didn't trace it, it would be illegitimate.
the only reason they care about possession is if by impoundment they can reverse some of the damages. In the case of SCO's Linux distribution, impoundment would have no effect on the damages the kernel contributers (or whoever sues SCO) are able to prove, because monetary damages can hardly be tied directly to the illegal distribution of already free software.
impoundment is to stop damage wrong. Your point plays more to "what monetary damage might be awardable". Based on GPL software prices, maybe nothing. Well, not nothing, just no money. Except that SCO wants to charge for that software. The judge is to award damages up to three times the money made by the violator. If the violator charges for something free, that can set the "monetary value" just as well. Further, the judge will no doubt be asked to give monetary value to the lost compliance. I.e. SCO has shipped it's proprietary code with Linux. What is the value of that code to the plaintiffs. By GPL that SCO code should now be available to IBM and other kernel contributors, that really is the FEE that they were asking for when they put their own code in. But it's not available because SCO has violated the GPL.
The easiest thing for the judge to do, in that case, is not attach a monetary value to the product and then try to figure the ratio for each plaintiff, the simpler thing is just make SCO give up the code, which is worth itself by definition.
the recall of said IP will not in this case, even indirectly, regain you the money that you lost, or keep you from losing more.
but it WILL stop you from losing more. And the judge does not have to wonder what you will lose (money, access to code, etc.) because he knows that the copyright exists and without the license you may not have a copy of that. THINKING you were in compliance will keep you out of jail, it will not let you keep the unlicensed IP.
This is not to say that there are no monetary damages that the prosecution might argue for and win, but I can't see (maybe somebody here can point it out) how 'undoing' the distribution of the software would help any of them. The most obvious reason for impoundment, at least, is absent.
Yes, you are right. But to me this is where your mistake also comes in. That is. You have a right to use the code if you are in possession of it. But if you got it unlicensed you are not in possession of it.
Reworded... you are not in LEGAL possession of it. The GPL gives you a way to be in LEGAL possession, then you can do what you like, including commingling it with your own IP, even. That's not a violation of the GPL because the GPL doesn't cover that. That does not mean a court cannot trace back and find out if you are supposed to possess the IP, that is, if you the provider had the right to give it to you. The court can trace that, and if it find you got it through illegitimate means, then officially, you don't possess it. You can't possess it. You can't recieve it.
"But I already recieved it" won't hold. In the eyes of the law, you couldn't recieve it. You have to make reality match the legal reality.
Think about it. Do you think that if I give you Windows source code for 10 million dollars and flee the country, that you have a legal copy of that source code? That you can use it as you wish? That you can compile it and use it as you like? Or do you suppose you are fine as long as you don't distribute it to the next guy. Or that you are fine if you don't get caught distributing it to the next guy.
Please understand, I get your argument (I think) and I understand your thinking, but the law would not work if interpretted that way, and it doesn't get interpretted that way.
In deed, if it did work that way, you could have Chinese companies distributing pirate software and there would be nothing Microsoft could do but fly to China.
that case would not prove the business distributed somthing to themselves at all.
In fact, in the scenario you just gave, it's possible that the DISTRIBUTION was in fact perfectly legal, but they just lost some paperwork. The DISTRIBUTION was legal, and they are still going to pay and be punished. Why is that?
Finding stolen property is not illegal. Keeping it is though. Keeping it when you didn't know it was stolen, again, not illegal. Keeping it later when you find out, is illegal. There is no loophole because the law goes to intent. If your intent was a good faith use, no problem, but if you know that it's stolen (unlicensed), then the situation changes. You have no right to use unlicensed IP. The copyright code ensures this by making sure the owner is the only one able to make a copy legally for distribution. As soon as the illigitmate distribution occurs all (mere) possession down stream is tainted.
Copyright law allows for 'impoundment' of such copies in certain cases, but this is specifically when the damage caused by the illegal copying might be to some extent reversed as a result of impoundment.
As it would in this case. Impoundment is the only way, SCO knows who it's customers are and believes it's own legal arguments, therefore needs to take such steps as to stop the violation.
Now about finding law that says this, I don't need to do this. I've heard this argument before and it's akin to another based in the truth, the argument that income taxes are voluntary. The argument is a technical detail.
The reality is people do get fines and other punishment for possessing unlicenced IP. Don't they?
And all I'm saying is that once it's found out you have illegally distributed IP, you don't get to keep it, you have to remit it. I am not saying it's illegal to have it in the first place, I'm saying once you know it's not licensed, then you have to remit it. You can't just keep it, think you are in the clear and it's someone else's problem.
Even if the law shouldn't be interpreted this way, it clearly is. IP piracy is punishable, and does get punished often.
The GPL is irrelevant because it expressly doesn't apply.
It's just copyright. And it's clear as day that when the BSA comes knocking on the door, they don't have to go after the distributor, they can just go after you, why? You are using unlicensed, copyrighted, material. And that is exactly what GPL software is the moment it's shown the GPL doesn't apply.
The GPL is untested in court, we don't know what interpetation will win the day. But copyright law is clear. You cannot POSSESS copyrighted material, and this prohibition is accomplished by making it illegal to distribute.
For the logic used in the law this is sufficient. There was no legal way for you to recieve a distribution... that doesn't mean you keep it... it means you NEVER OFFICIALLY DID RECEIVE A DISTRIBUTION. The distribution event is null. You don't have the code.
As for being able to make a copy. Make a copy if you like to still be in violation and take your chance. But the judge will expect you to follow an order. Besides, the point is not that SCO could really ensure the code was recalled, but it could call for that. Instead it's sanctioned use of unlicensed code, namely it's linux distribution.
It seems to me you honestly think that it's legally OK to have "pirated" software, as if you could only be caught in the act of CD copying, you're free and clear afterwards. No court will interpret the law this way.
I think you are mistaken. I have heard that line of reason.
However, if the BSA comes and finds unlicenced software, they are not bound to find out where you got it. They KNOW that was an illegal distribution.
The point is, there is no laundering of blame so that down stream it's fine to have/use the unlicensed code.
It's like stolen property. The crime is in stealing, but it's also a crime to possess stolen property. You might not get in trouble if it was an "accident", but you better give the property back and don't wait until the crook gives you a refund.
The law governing copyright is totally different from that, but the enforcement and interpretation is the same.
If you got it by illegal (unlicensed) means, you cannot continue to posses/use the material. There was no right for distribution... so there is no way for you to legally possess it.
yes, I know. I hope my rhetorical technique didn't strike you as dishonest. I mostly used it first to explain the idea that there is NON-SCO ip involved, and since SCO wisely doesn't say which IP in the kernel belongs to SCO ("um, all of it") I just used another well known product. But I did clean up! I did say it was really the other (non-SCO) kernel code at issue.
AND: I'm not sure, that while Sun can ship GNOME with Solaris, that SCO isn't also in violation for products like GNOME. Why? Because they are charging for "linux" the distribution. They are not charging for GNU/Linux, they are not saying "pay for the linux kernel", they are asking for money for linux distributions, they are charging for GNOME. They can't do that. Still, I'm saying you are right, it's really the non-SCO kernel code that makes them absolutely in violation.
There is a lot of arguing room over something like GNOME, and clearly, there are ways to ship GNOME with other royalty generating products, since, as you point out, it's entirely seperate.
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you are right except for one thing... I think it should be depressing, the one point that is true is that there -should- in fact be a reciprocal feeling of dedication from the company. People give a lot to work for a company, they live in a particular place and their whole life depends on that, even if an employer says, "don't feel dedicated or lawyer, this is just your job", you would still be obligated to it because so much of one's life is set up supporting it. There is not, in fact, always some other job to go to.
A lot of people just do workaday... but they fool themselves, you cannot give that much time to something and think it's separate. Time is life. A second of time is your life/soul/only currency. If you zone out, that's just psychology, you are still there being zoned out. You will feel the zombie. Most people fine a stress reducing ballance, and root for their company with much the same enthusiasm as a sports team, by which I mean constantly bad mouthing it's mistakes and still wishing that it wins.
Of course, companies do demand loyalty and fidelity... to the limit of the law generally. Some companies try to tighten the belt without letting people go. Some companies value their good employees, and find ways to eliminate bad employees, and want their employees to be well compensated and insured. We need a situation where all companies are like that.
It got the weekend, the forty hour week. (Unless your exempt). It got rid of Monarchy (unless you're british etc.) It got national health care (well, if you are british). Blaming stuff on other people has helped in a lot of cases.
He said that dedication to a company deserves reciprocal dedication from a company. Is there a problem with that in particular?
it's probably a matter of the Japanese crash. Fifteen years ago they were promising whatever, generation 7, or 4 or 5, some number. They were pushing everything past it's esoteric limits. Then, humbled for a few years. I can't wait until Japan is back on track.
I think a person does have to be trained in their tools, but a carpenter doesn't have to know how to smith his own tools to be an expert carpenter, so it's a ballance.
However, my comment is just about being held to your own hype. Oh, it's all nice to be Microsoft and not say a word when your customers think you've invented the internet and do one better, help to give that impression, happilly play loose with details when it makes it seem to the masses that you are the great benefactor of this technological cornocopia, all possible because you have the brand at the top of the stack where the users can read it without a screwdriver. Yes, that's nice. But then, of course, you SHOULD NOT be suprised when people come and blame you that their logitech mouse is broken.
Same thing with Microsoft security. Yes, I agree, it's the admin's fault. But then, after more than a decade selling your product because "it's just a click" and down playing the need to know... um... what the fsck you need to click and why, like that you click makes it easier, easy enough for a monkey, well, you sort of ARE to blame for stupid admins. You actively stupidated them. You promoted their managers to seek out the stupidest of them. In unix you don't have that. You have companies like Sun that tell you to have an expert admin, that expect and admin to follow patches, etc, so on the unix side you can say, "get a better admin"... on the windows side you have to say, "ok, yeah, we were full of shit, you DO have to know what the machine is doing and even a little of the 'how' in order to administer it".
I'm learning how things work in the real world, that's why I know that the moment that Linux has no advantage over Windows is the moment everyone probably switches to Linux for the reasons that used to be valid.
I think this might be just deserts for the fact that Microsoft tries to take credit for everything good about the PC platform... you'd think Microsoft invented it and every invention associated with it.
kind of a, you reap what you sow kind of thing.
and why? you think that's fine then?
memory leaks... no problem... disk space is free!
I think it's easier when you can be sure it's a hardware problem. It's easier to buy a new component than fix a software problem.
Of course, like you, I don't think SCO's right. Well, I don't think it's substantially right; I think there's so much error, and the error goes both ways. If SCO survives this (and thanks to IBM, it won't), Linux will be freed, mostly by declarations of public domain and partly by removing SCO code.
well we agree on the most important thing then.
but not on the rest. If SCO's IP is in linux, and it's still royalty generating (b/c IBM etc. put it in there), then yes, we all have to stop using it. If the only way to do that is to stop using Linux, yup, you have to stop using linux (of course, not until a judge says so). But in reality, if SCO's IP is in there, the judge will give time and information to allow it being removed. The result, a patch for your linux machine.
If you really need the feature that the patch removes (which I doubt, I don't think it will remove anything... there is no way SCO owns JFS, etc.) then you are in trouble. But that's just the way it goes.
Also I think that you mistake SCO's, or any companies, responsibilities. Companies have to make the right motions. They can get away with being insincere, but not so insincere that it's provable they are not really complying with something. If you sue another company based on facts ABC, the judge will and can and should look to see if you yourself are acting on the conviction of those beliefs. When the SEC looks into the stock sales, it will look to see if SCO really believed it's argument. If it really studied the issues and made reasonable comments to the press based on real knowledge. So SCO's communications to it's users is important. The GPL clearly says it's not valid in the circumstance SCO claims. It's black and white. SCO has to inform it's users that it did not have authority to distribute that code, SCO claims no one did.
Why would SCO's action cause everyone to stop using it? SCO just has to specify what IP and linux users would have to remove it. How long would that take?
And the court should also make sco provide a program or patch that removes their patented IP from their own distributions. Or, just grant the IP.
Not that I really think they own anything.
Perl then.
and to think history will not know the true identity of the author of this beautiful poetry.
My god, I'm touched. Which is synonymous with insane.
Nicely done sir! You are a tribute to our submordern culture. Thank you.
I shall always read the comment and never read the article, as you have said.
PS: yes, I got that backwards... that's my satire... or is it irony? In soviet russia, joke asks you.
your mistake in this context is that you have forgotten, the GPL does not apply. The GPL, which you need to re-read, specifically section 7, specifically does not allow itself to be commingled with royalty generating code. There is a lot of potential controversy about what constitutes commingling. But in this case, code in the kernel, it's clearly commingled if the accusation is true (SCO is bound to represent it's own current argument in it's actions).
So, the code is not covered by the GPL. Therefore, by copyright, the copy is unlicensed, the distribution was illegal, and the copies must be "returned" (stopping use and destroying copies).
Once the GPL no longer applies you don't have to think about the GPL. It's not GPLed software at that point. It's just "pirated software".
it's not often I find someone as persistent to a conversation as I am. So, nice to anonymously meet you.
"Possessing stolen physical goods is a criminal offense while mere possessing of goods which infringe on copyright is not."
This is true, and it argues for your side of this. My analogies are just that. I persist in calling things illegal copies because that's a common language and it's not misleading. You get in trouble for having them just as with stolen property, in much the same way (which is to say, some allowance is given for innocent possession in either case). But I don't know of any case where such possession was sanctioned, and the IP was allowed to remain at the unlicensed recipient.
The only sense in which anyone is fined for possession is in the case that possession is deemed by a court to be prima facie evidence of infringement (read, illegal distribution).
this is all I'm saying. It's always a cause for that. The code is only distributed under one license, the GPL, and it doesn't apply. That is prima facea evidence of illegal distribution.
Think of this other example, SCO has revoked AIX. When the judge rules that this is SCO's right... does IBM get to keep AIX because when the distribution occured to IBM, they were in compliance with the license, they were legal at the moment of distribution, they keep the code? What about IBM AIX customers, do they just keep the code, regardless of what happens to IBM? Only if SCO lets them. IBM would have to negotiate something to stay in business and protect it's customers. It would owe it's customers money if it allowed AIX to be lost because IBM has indemnified them in such situations. But that downstream distribution would be tainted.
You are talking about where liability stops, where damages are involved. But in terms of keeping the code, EVERYONE downstream has to give up the code. If they keep it that just means they are getting away with something usually called software piracy.
I enjoy a debate.
I think we are getting somewhere.
What I am denying is that a copy per se can be legal or illegal.
I understand and agree. But having a copy is evidence of a distribution. So we call that an illegal copy as shorthand, because it is the same thing. Even if the court didn't trace it, it would be illegitimate.
the only reason they care about possession is if by impoundment they can reverse some of the damages. In the case of SCO's Linux distribution, impoundment would have no effect on the damages the kernel contributers (or whoever sues SCO) are able to prove, because monetary damages can hardly be tied directly to the illegal distribution of already free software.
impoundment is to stop damage wrong. Your point plays more to "what monetary damage might be awardable". Based on GPL software prices, maybe nothing. Well, not nothing, just no money. Except that SCO wants to charge for that software. The judge is to award damages up to three times the money made by the violator. If the violator charges for something free, that can set the "monetary value" just as well. Further, the judge will no doubt be asked to give monetary value to the lost compliance. I.e. SCO has shipped it's proprietary code with Linux. What is the value of that code to the plaintiffs. By GPL that SCO code should now be available to IBM and other kernel contributors, that really is the FEE that they were asking for when they put their own code in. But it's not available because SCO has violated the GPL.
The easiest thing for the judge to do, in that case, is not attach a monetary value to the product and then try to figure the ratio for each plaintiff, the simpler thing is just make SCO give up the code, which is worth itself by definition.
the recall of said IP will not in this case, even indirectly, regain you the money that you lost, or keep you from losing more.
but it WILL stop you from losing more. And the judge does not have to wonder what you will lose (money, access to code, etc.) because he knows that the copyright exists and without the license you may not have a copy of that. THINKING you were in compliance will keep you out of jail, it will not let you keep the unlicensed IP.
This is not to say that there are no monetary damages that the prosecution might argue for and win, but I can't see (maybe somebody here can point it out) how 'undoing' the distribution of the software would help any of them. The most obvious reason for impoundment, at least, is absent.
Yes, you are right. But to me this is where your mistake also comes in. That is. You have a right to use the code if you are in possession of it. But if you got it unlicensed you are not in possession of it.
Reworded... you are not in LEGAL possession of it. The GPL gives you a way to be in LEGAL possession, then you can do what you like, including commingling it with your own IP, even. That's not a violation of the GPL because the GPL doesn't cover that. That does not mean a court cannot trace back and find out if you are supposed to possess the IP, that is, if you the provider had the right to give it to you. The court can trace that, and if it find you got it through illegitimate means, then officially, you don't possess it. You can't possess it. You can't recieve it.
"But I already recieved it" won't hold. In the eyes of the law, you couldn't recieve it. You have to make reality match the legal reality.
Think about it. Do you think that if I give you Windows source code for 10 million dollars and flee the country, that you have a legal copy of that source code? That you can use it as you wish? That you can compile it and use it as you like? Or do you suppose you are fine as long as you don't distribute it to the next guy. Or that you are fine if you don't get caught distributing it to the next guy.
Please understand, I get your argument (I think) and I understand your thinking, but the law would not work if interpretted that way, and it doesn't get interpretted that way.
In deed, if it did work that way, you could have Chinese companies distributing pirate software and there would be nothing Microsoft could do but fly to China.
that case would not prove the business distributed somthing to themselves at all.
In fact, in the scenario you just gave, it's possible that the DISTRIBUTION was in fact perfectly legal, but they just lost some paperwork. The DISTRIBUTION was legal, and they are still going to pay and be punished. Why is that?
Finding stolen property is not illegal. Keeping it is though. Keeping it when you didn't know it was stolen, again, not illegal. Keeping it later when you find out, is illegal. There is no loophole because the law goes to intent. If your intent was a good faith use, no problem, but if you know that it's stolen (unlicensed), then the situation changes. You have no right to use unlicensed IP. The copyright code ensures this by making sure the owner is the only one able to make a copy legally for distribution. As soon as the illigitmate distribution occurs all (mere) possession down stream is tainted.
Copyright law allows for 'impoundment' of such copies in certain cases, but this is specifically when the damage caused by the illegal copying might be to some extent reversed as a result of impoundment.
As it would in this case. Impoundment is the only way, SCO knows who it's customers are and believes it's own legal arguments, therefore needs to take such steps as to stop the violation.
Now about finding law that says this, I don't need to do this. I've heard this argument before and it's akin to another based in the truth, the argument that income taxes are voluntary. The argument is a technical detail.
The reality is people do get fines and other punishment for possessing unlicenced IP. Don't they?
And all I'm saying is that once it's found out you have illegally distributed IP, you don't get to keep it, you have to remit it. I am not saying it's illegal to have it in the first place, I'm saying once you know it's not licensed, then you have to remit it. You can't just keep it, think you are in the clear and it's someone else's problem.
Even if the law shouldn't be interpreted this way, it clearly is. IP piracy is punishable, and does get punished often.
but it seems to me this thread is trying to argue that "PERL -does- make sense".
The GPL is irrelevant because it expressly doesn't apply.
It's just copyright. And it's clear as day that when the BSA comes knocking on the door, they don't have to go after the distributor, they can just go after you, why? You are using unlicensed, copyrighted, material. And that is exactly what GPL software is the moment it's shown the GPL doesn't apply.
The GPL is untested in court, we don't know what interpetation will win the day. But copyright law is clear. You cannot POSSESS copyrighted material, and this prohibition is accomplished by making it illegal to distribute.
For the logic used in the law this is sufficient. There was no legal way for you to recieve a distribution... that doesn't mean you keep it... it means you NEVER OFFICIALLY DID RECEIVE A DISTRIBUTION. The distribution event is null. You don't have the code.
As for being able to make a copy. Make a copy if you like to still be in violation and take your chance. But the judge will expect you to follow an order. Besides, the point is not that SCO could really ensure the code was recalled, but it could call for that. Instead it's sanctioned use of unlicensed code, namely it's linux distribution.
It seems to me you honestly think that it's legally OK to have "pirated" software, as if you could only be caught in the act of CD copying, you're free and clear afterwards. No court will interpret the law this way.
I think you are mistaken. I have heard that line of reason.
However, if the BSA comes and finds unlicenced software, they are not bound to find out where you got it. They KNOW that was an illegal distribution.
The point is, there is no laundering of blame so that down stream it's fine to have/use the unlicensed code.
It's like stolen property. The crime is in stealing, but it's also a crime to possess stolen property. You might not get in trouble if it was an "accident", but you better give the property back and don't wait until the crook gives you a refund.
The law governing copyright is totally different from that, but the enforcement and interpretation is the same.
If you got it by illegal (unlicensed) means, you cannot continue to posses/use the material. There was no right for distribution... so there is no way for you to legally possess it.
you just need to re-edit that so that bambi is cursing up a foul mouthed storm at the world, then, godzilla foot!
... not hate Ransom Love.
yes, I know. I hope my rhetorical technique didn't strike you as dishonest. I mostly used it first to explain the idea that there is NON-SCO ip involved, and since SCO wisely doesn't say which IP in the kernel belongs to SCO ("um, all of it") I just used another well known product. But I did clean up! I did say it was really the other (non-SCO) kernel code at issue.
AND: I'm not sure, that while Sun can ship GNOME with Solaris, that SCO isn't also in violation for products like GNOME. Why? Because they are charging for "linux" the distribution. They are not charging for GNU/Linux, they are not saying "pay for the linux kernel", they are asking for money for linux distributions, they are charging for GNOME. They can't do that. Still, I'm saying you are right, it's really the non-SCO kernel code that makes them absolutely in violation.
There is a lot of arguing room over something like GNOME, and clearly, there are ways to ship GNOME with other royalty generating products, since, as you point out, it's entirely seperate.