The worst thing about the part of the decision that's in Real's favor is that they explicitly cited the lack of a fair use clause in the DMCA, as opposed to "regular" copyright law.
It's completely bogus, in my (non-lawyer) opinion, since the courts originated the fair use defense and have long held that they alone decide what "fair use" means as a part of fundamental public policy (this goes back to the 1830s), and the fair use exception in Title 17 is merely a codification of the existing precedent at the time. In particular, Congress doesn't have the power, constitutionally, to define away fair use, or to prevent its claim.
I'll be interested to see the court's ruling in writing (a representative of Real has said they'll be posting it as soon as they've got it transcribed).
Lynn
Re:The real way to cheat GPL (and why it will fail
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Hole in GNU GPL?
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· Score: 1
I don't think anyone could make a case for communicating with a daemon being a creation of a derivative work. It is the same as the way you can make a script that runs programs which may be (and, in fact, are) GPL'd, without releasing the script under the GPL.
I think you're wrong, but it appears that RMS agrees with you.
You're essentially trying to draw a technical/functional boundary around an issue that can only be decided by a judge based on the expressive nature (not functional nature) of the code in question. It won't work.
Lynn
Re:Stallman's right IMHO. In this case that's good
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Hole in GNU GPL?
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· Score: 2
I'd like to respond to this:
Companies can keep their internal modifications secret as long as they don't distribute the code OUTSIDE their non-disclosure boundary - and once they distribute the object outside that boundary, they must also distribute the source.
That should be as long as they don't distribute the modifications outside the corporation. NDA's with outside parties can't be held to overrule the GPL (if the originator of the modifications thinks they do, then they are legally precluded from distributing their modifications by the GPL/copyright law).
As to the second point, the boundaries are determined by courts, in particular that corporations are legally considered to be individuals. "NDA boundaries" have no legal standing as individuals. Thus distributing outside the corp _is_ distribution, regardless of any NDAs.
Lynn
Re:Stallman's right IMHO. In this case that's good
on
Hole in GNU GPL?
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· Score: 0
I'd like to respond to this: Companies can keep their internal modifications secret as long as they don't distribute the code OUTSIDE their non-disclosure boundary - and once they distribute the object outside that boundary, they must also distribute the source.
That should be as long as they don't distribute the modifications outside the corporation. NDA's with outside parties can't be held to overrule the GPL (if the originator of the modifications thinks they do, then they are legally precluded from distributing their modifications by the GPL/copyright law).
As to the second point, the boundaries are determined by courts, in particular that corporations are legally considered to be individuals. "NDA boundaries" have no legal standing as individuals. Thus distributing outside the corp _is_ distribution, regardless of any NDAs.
I'm just a grad student, not a Dr. The home page might be a little misleading, in that I'm working on an interactive programming system that makes the current streaming tools (servers, clients, codecs, etc) basic metaphors that can be easily combined in any weird and unexpected combination desired. Configuring any one of these tools should be easy, but the real fun will be constructing middleware that does different things (say scripting a "virtual switchboard" for an Internet talk show in a few hundred lines of Scheme code).
Right now I'm working on a decompiler so people can more easily reverse engineer proprietary codecs and protocols, and to provide a more immediate benefit to projects like Icecast (who have more modest goals and actual software now).
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It's completely bogus, in my (non-lawyer) opinion, since the courts originated the fair use defense and have long held that they alone decide
what "fair use" means as a part of fundamental public policy (this goes back to the 1830s), and the fair use exception in Title 17 is merely a codification of the existing precedent at the time. In particular, Congress doesn't have the power, constitutionally, to define away fair use, or to prevent its claim.
I'll be interested to see the court's ruling in writing (a representative of Real has said they'll be posting it as soon as they've got it transcribed).
Lynn
I think you're wrong, but it appears that RMS agrees with you.
You're essentially trying to draw a technical/functional boundary around an issue that can only be decided by a judge based on the expressive nature (not functional nature) of the code in question. It won't work.
Lynn
That should be as long as they don't distribute the modifications outside the corporation. NDA's with outside parties can't be held to overrule the GPL (if the originator of the modifications thinks they do, then they are legally precluded from distributing their modifications by the GPL/copyright law).
As to the second point, the boundaries are determined by courts, in particular that corporations are legally considered to be individuals. "NDA boundaries" have no legal standing as individuals. Thus distributing outside the corp _is_ distribution, regardless of any NDAs.
Lynn
Companies can keep their internal modifications secret as long as they don't distribute the code OUTSIDE their non-disclosure boundary - and once they distribute the object outside that boundary, they must also distribute the source.
That should be as long as they don't distribute the modifications outside the corporation. NDA's with outside parties can't be held to overrule the GPL (if the originator of the modifications thinks they do, then they are legally precluded from distributing their modifications by the GPL/copyright law).
As to the second point, the boundaries are determined by courts, in particular that corporations are legally considered to be individuals. "NDA boundaries" have no legal standing as individuals. Thus distributing outside the corp _is_ distribution, regardless of any NDAs.
Lynn
Right now I'm working on a decompiler so people can more easily reverse engineer proprietary codecs and protocols, and to provide a more immediate benefit to projects like Icecast (who have more modest goals and actual software now).
Lynn