United States Federal court rules open source licenses are enforcable

[Dremora]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7561943.stm

"In non-technical terms, the Court has held that free licenses set conditions on the use of copyrighted work. When you violate the condition, the license disappears, meaning you're simply a copyright infringer."

I'll play my little violin for Microsoft and the other companies that have been trying to undermine free software licenses. :-({|=

[zmjjmz]

Isn't copyright infringement for commercial purposes a criminal act?
So, if any large business violates the GPL, BSD, ASL, etc. they can be arrested?
Happy times.

[Dremora]

Isn't copyright infringement for commercial purposes a criminal act?
So, if any large business violates the GPL, BSD, ASL, etc. they can be arrested?
Happy times.

Yes, this company stole his source code, violated all terms in the license, and massively distributed it for profit.

Something needs to be done to them.

The RIAA did the same thing with Xubuntu a year or so ago, and turned it into spyware they called the "University Toolkit", I'm surprised Canonical didn't use the excuse to sue them.

If anyone deserves to be on the receiving end of a lawsuit, it's the RIAA.

http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2007/12/mpaas_university_toolkit_taken.html

[Dr. C]

Yes, this company stole his source code, violated all terms in the license, and massively distributed it for profit.

Something needs to be done to them.

The RIAA did the same thing with Xubuntu a year or so ago, and turned it into spyware they called the "University Toolkit", I'm surprised Canonical didn't use the excuse to sue them.

If anyone deserves to be on the receiving end of a lawsuit, it's the RIAA.

http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2007/12/mpaas_university_toolkit_taken.html

It was the MPAA and not the RIAA that was involved in the University Toolkit.

One big difference between pirating FLOSS and propriety software is that with FLOSS the pirate may have to deal with thousands of individual copyright holders and each one can seek civil and or criminal sanctions to enforce the copyright(s) on their respective contribution(s). Pirates of propriety software on the other hand typically have to deal with only one copyright holder.

[phrostbyte]

If free software licenses get declared invalid it doesn't mean all the free software goes in the public domain, but the opposite, the software becomes not distributable without the authors written permissions. Software without a license is software which is not legal to distribute.

[SunnyRabbiera]

Doesnt say a thing about the GPL

[lisati]

I would have thought that in the absence of GPL & other similar licences, there would be some kind of automatic copyright protection.

[Dremora]

Doesnt say a thing about the GPL

That doesn't matter, it wasn't a ruling on any specific license.

The issue at hand was "Are the terms of a license for software and source code which is freely shared enforcable", the court ruled that it is enforceable.

This applies to GPL, BSD license, CDDL, Creative Commons, the Apache License, anything, as it establishes a precedent that lower courts have to obey now.

[Darkhack]

I'm confused. When has it not been enforcable and why wouldn't it be?

[kevin11951]

I'm confused. When has it not been enforcable and why wouldn't it be?

same here

[Dremora]

same here

It's never been ruled one way or the other, so now there is precedent that they are valid.

A lower court (state level) told them it was not enforceable because their interpretation of open source and free of charge was that it amounted to public domain.

[Darkhack]

It's never been ruled one way or the other, so now there is precedent that they are valid.

There have been several cases with open source in court before. http://gpl-violations.org/ lists a few.


A lower court (state level) told them it was not enforceable because their interpretation of open source and free of charge was that it amounted to public domain.

A state level court said that? Fire the judge immediately. I barely study law at all and even I know the difference between licenses like the GPL and the public domain. It's scary that someone who doesn't hold an elementary understanding of copyright law is allowed to rule on it.

[Dremora]

In my experience, crackpot judges that only kinf of half understand what they're doing are not in short supply anyway, and when it comes to computer software or the internet, 99% of them re way out of their league.

There's many reasons I refuse to call what we have a "justice system" (I call it a "legal system"), but that right there easily makes #2 on my list, right after SLAPP lawsuits, and just before the fact that having a jury of average people who's opinion is easily steered is scary, and in cases where it's the judges call, thats even scarier. (See #2) :lolflag: