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Software Government The Courts News

GPL Hard to Enforce? 361

Posted by samzenpus from the who-owns-it dept.
the-dark-kangaroo writes "The GPL may be difficult to enforce due to a lack of clarity over who owns the copyright to the software, according to a legal expert. Lucie Guibault, an assistant professor of intellectual-property law at the Institute for Information Law in Amsterdam, said at the Holland Open Software Conference in Amsterdam, that the GPL should clarify who is the author of the software to ensure that open source software distributed under this licence receives legal protection."
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GPL Hard to Enforce? More

GPL Hard to Enforce?

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  • Derivative Works? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by panxerox ( 575545 ) * on Wednesday June 01, 2005 @07:24PM (#12700332)
    Wouldent this be covered under Derivative Works [copyright.gov] as the author "derives" the finished product from a copyrighted work?
    I am way way not a lawyer, IANAL.
    • But my GPL software has comments at the top of all scripts that look something like this:

      // rantyblog! v1.0
      // Copyright 2002, 2003, 2004 (My Real Name)

      // This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
      // the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software
      // Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later
      // version.

      // (etc.)

      Also, from the GPL Preamble [gnu.org] on the FSF Website [gnu.org]:

      We protect your rights with two steps: (1) co

    • >Wouldent this be covered under Derivative Works
      >as the author "derives" the finished product
      >from a copyrighted work?

      Derivative works actually is a bit different in different countries. In many countries the author of a derivative work gets the copyright to it (and not the origial copyright holder) although the use of such derivative work is restricted to that of the original work. Exactly what is covered and considered as a derivative work varies and I believe that in the US, the scope is larger
    • I am way way not a lawyer, IANAL.

      Yay for redundancy! I quite like the idea of IAWWNAL though. Here are some other possible ones:

      IAN FLEMING - I Am Not For Lawyers Examining Mindless Internet News Groups
      NONLEGAL - Neither Olivia Newton-John, Lee Evans or God Are Lawyers
      LARD - Lawyers Are Redundant Deadweight
      LAWYERS - Lawyer Acronyms Will Yield Extensive Reduction of Sense

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday June 01, 2005 @07:28PM (#12700353)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:In other news... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by unixbugs ( 654234 )
      These things are an entity of greed, something in which the GPL was not founded. IMHO the GPL is an agreement between the user and the developer to maintain the inegrity of the code, and to further its existence and usefulness. This, by nature, is in effect the opposite of that which defines conventional means of protecting ideas and property.

      Developing open source software for public use is not something attributed to those who would benefit from doing so arbitrarily, it is something attributed to those

  • Stupid stupid article (Score:5, Insightful)

    by interiot ( 50685 ) on Wednesday June 01, 2005 @07:28PM (#12700357) Homepage
    The copyright of the actual text of the GPL is owned by the Free Software Foundation, but the author owns the copyright to the GPL-licensed software. Authors that wish to release their software under the GPL are advised to include a line in the source code stating "Copyright © [name of author]".

    If the author of GPL-licensed product discovers that a company has not adhered to the terms and conditions of the free software licence, the individual may find it difficult to argue his case in court as the defending party could argue that the copyright appears to belong to the Free Software Foundation, according to Guibault.

    "The only name that appears on the licence is the Free Software Foundation -- they appear to be the licensor," she said.

    Seriously, you can't pay someone to come up with schlock this bad.

    • Sure you can! Hell, Gates & Co. do it all the time. Witness SCO, and every "comparison between {insert non-Windows OS here} and Windows(tm)" ever subsidized by Microsoft. But yeah, this is pretty awful.

    • Re:Stupid stupid article (Score:5, Informative)

      by El Cubano ( 631386 ) on Wednesday June 01, 2005 @07:38PM (#12700430)

      Seriously, you can't pay someone to come up with schlock this bad.

      No kidding. Check this out (from vmscan.c in the Linux kernel):

      /*
      * linux/mm/vmscan.c
      *
      * Copyright (C) 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994 Linus Torvalds
      *
      * Swap reorganised 29.12.95, Stephen Tweedie.
      * kswapd added: 7.1.96 sct
      * Removed kswapd_ctl limits, and swap out as many pages as needed
      * to bring the system back to freepages.high: 2.4.97, Rik van Riel.
      * Zone aware kswapd started 02/00, Kanoj Sarcar (kanoj@sgi.com).
      * Multiqueue VM started 5.8.00, Rik van Riel.
      */

      Any doubts about whose the copyright is?

      • Poor Stephen Tweedie, Rik van Riel and Kanoj Sarcar, not putting a (C) near their names to denote their copyrights as well.
      • Yeah, Torvalds. Claimed in the format the article recommends.

        This is common sense. If you don't explicitly claim copyright, your ability to assert copyright is at risk.

        • This is not true in the countries that signed the Berne Convention on copyright (ie nearly every country on Earth). Copyright is automatically conferred unless explicitly rejected by the creator.

          However, perhaps you meant to say that your ability to assert copyright is at risk if you cannot produce proof that you have had a hand in the creation of the work.

      • Re:Stupid stupid article (Score:5, Funny)

        by sharkey ( 16670 ) on Wednesday June 01, 2005 @08:24PM (#12700750)
        Any doubts about whose the copyright is?

        SCO's?

      • No doubt at all.

        Since 1991 Linus Torvalds has copyright.
        Since 29.12.95 Stephen Tweedie has copyright.
        Since 7.1.96 sct has copyright.
        Since 2.4.97 Rik van Riel has copyright.

        All authors of a source file holds copyright on the source file.

        • Re:Stupid stupid article (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Phexro ( 9814 ) on Wednesday June 01, 2005 @09:03PM (#12701059)
          Actually, the authors own the copyright to their individual contributions, e.g. Rik van Riel has copyright to the code for the kswapd_ctl changes.

          Simply being the last to contribute to something doesn't mean that you gain the copyright over the rest of the code.

          The only even semi-legit issue here is that because the code is/may be copyrighted by many people, it becomes hard to sort out who owns what in a particular file. Revision control takes care of that, since you can see the precise changes made by each individual. It may be harder to sort out older (pre-BitKeeper) code, since I don't think the original patches exist anymore, just the aggregate changes from version N to N+1.
      • One problem. What if someone else releases a derivative work under the GPL. That person makes a comment copyrighting the code. Then an evil third-party comes along and violates GPL by using some of the code. The code is in both versions, which are copyrighted by the GPL, so whose code is it? It looks obvious, that the first author does, but what if there aren't comments on every single line saying who write what? It might be impossible to find where each part of the code started. Even if you did know
        • > what if there aren't comments on every single line saying who write what?

          See cvs annotate [thathost.com] or your favourite SCM system's equivalent.

        • The code is in both versions, which are copyrighted by the GPL, so whose code is it?

          Umm no. They aren't 'copyrighted by the GPL' - thats silly. They're copyright (no -ed on that) the authors. Each author is owner of the copyright on the code they wrote. They are offered under the GPL license. The license is not the copyright, it's a license (the word is a synonym for permission) to use the copyrighted code in ways not otherwise permitted under copyright law.

      • Well,

        the dutch law professor is likely wrong as a lot of ppl have pointed out.

        But, I cant resist to nitpick on your example ...

        /*
        * linux/mm/vmscan.c
        *
        * Copyright (C) 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994 Linus Torvalds
        *
        * Swap reorganised 29.12.95, Stephen Tweedie.
        * kswapd added: 7.1.96 sct
        * Removed kswapd_ctl limits, and swap out as many pages as needed
        * to bring the system back to freepages.high: 2.4.97, Rik van Riel.
        * Zone aware kswapd started 02/00, Kanoj Sarcar (kanoj@sgi.com).
        * Multiqueue VM started 5.8.00, Rik v
    • Well, by this logic, the government (whose laws govern copyright law) own at least all proprietary code, and probably all code period.

      Seriously, what the hell?
    • Seriously, you can't pay someone to come up with schlock this bad.

      You have clearly never read a John Dvorak article.

    • Yes you can. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by jd ( 1658 ) <imipak AT yahoo DOT com> on Wednesday June 01, 2005 @08:41PM (#12700857) Homepage Journal
      It's just that the worse you want the stuff to be, the more you have to pay them to stop laughing long enough to write it.


      The FSF owns (a) the licence, and (b) all code assigned to it. (This is why they do strongly suggest assigning rights to it, to avoid any lack of understanding or willful stupidity on the part of lawyers or corporate execs.)


      Any individual programmer owns all GPLed code that they write, provided they have not assigned the rights to the FSF.


      Personally, I don't see the problem. Well, actually, I do. The problem is that a lot of lawyers get paid to find problems and create them when they aren't there to be found.


      The French only pay doctors when people are well, which means that doctors there do a great deal to prevent illness, rather than profit off it. Maybe US corporate lawyers should be paid on a similar basis - by how many legal tangles they DON'T get into, which seems a better indicator of when they are doing their job.

      • Re:Yes you can. (Score:4, Informative)

        by Arker ( 91948 ) on Thursday June 02, 2005 @12:55AM (#12702053) Homepage
        Correction - the FSF doesn't urge people to assign copyright to them on anything and everything, as you imply. They require copyright assignments on official FSF projects, of course, but there are many other Free Software projects they neither have nor want copyright on.

        The stuff about french doctors doesn't seem to contribute to your post, and sounds a bit suspect, too.

  • Enforceable? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by unixbugs ( 654234 ) on Wednesday June 01, 2005 @07:28PM (#12700359)
    We'll see what is enforceable and what isn't when these big companies that are dumping money in to open source development feel like they have something to protect from each other.
  • In most cases, I'd think that most authors would note their identity when writing code that is open-sourced under GPL. After that, how difficult is it to figure out?
    • More to the point, if you don't put a copyright notice at the top of your source code and state that it is available under the GPL (or whatever license you like) it doesn't matter if there happens to be a LICENSE file in the same directory. If the top of your source code just looks like this: /* Copyright Steve Jobs, 1992-1994 */

      That means you are reserving all rights and having GPL.txt in the same directory implies nothing. You might have some GPL licensed tool in your tarball that you use in your build

      • 1. I believe that in the US, a copyright comes into existence either at the point of creation or at the time it is first plublished (I don't remember which). So it doesn't need a specific copyright on it, but the downside is that if the owner ever wants to seek damages, it will be more difficult.

        2. You can only "reserve all rights" when the work is registered with the copyright office. If it's not registered, you still own the copyright, but there are certain legal advantages that you will not have at your

  • Tell that to Harald Welte (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 01, 2005 @07:29PM (#12700364)
    He has been enforcing GPL for over a year now [gpl-violations.org] with impressive results.

    This guy does not know what he is talking about.
    • gnambulance gchaser?
    • Seems like his 'enforcement' has relied on the good nature of the 'violators'.

      A quick glance didnt point out any legal findings in real court, so its all just a lot of hot air.

      The GPL doesnt stand up.

      • Lucky eh? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by OverflowingBitBucket ( 464177 ) on Wednesday June 01, 2005 @08:09PM (#12700660) Homepage Journal
        Seems like his 'enforcement' has relied on the good nature of the 'violators'.

        A quick glance didnt point out any legal findings in real court, so its all just a lot of hot air.

        The GPL doesnt stand up.

        Lucky all these companies caved in then isn't it? I mean, you'd expect multiple companies to cave in to the demands to fight off the terrifying threat of an individual with a baseless case, right?

        Just because it didn't make it to court doesn't mean the case is without merit. In fact quite the opposite. The GPL violators caving before court suggests that they figured there was a good chance they wouldn't win.
        • Just because it didn't make it to court doesn't mean the case is without merit. In fact quite the opposite. The GPL violators caving before court suggests that they figured there was a good chance they wouldn't win.

          It's funny, someone was saying exactly the opposite in yet another RIAA/copyright-related thread just a few hours ago.

          • It's funny, someone was saying exactly the opposite in yet another RIAA/copyright-related thread just a few hours ago.

            Obviously I haven't seen the thread or post in question (a link'd be cool if you're sharing), but there are quite a few reasons why a case won't make it to court. Here are some:

            1. The entity threatening a case has no ground to stand on and the target knows it. The target tells them to go pound sand. Basically a bluff.
            2. The entity threatening a case has solid ground to stand on and the ta

  • copyright assignment (Score:3, Informative)

    by hankaholic ( 32239 ) on Wednesday June 01, 2005 @07:32PM (#12700385)
    This is why contributors to GNU software are expected to assign copyright [mirror5.com] to the FSF.

    This issue has been addressed, and the FSF has shown one way to handle it properly. There's nothing to see here.

  • This is why... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Jimmy_B ( 129296 ) <{gro.hmodnarmij} {ta} {mij}> on Wednesday June 01, 2005 @07:33PM (#12700393) Homepage
    This isn't a real problem. The basic issue is that only the copyright holder has standing to litigate copyright violations. But it's never really ambiguous who the copyright holder is. The FSF recommends that free software developers assign their copyrights to the FSF, so that they can deal with violations. Many individual projects require all contributors to assign their copyrights to a consortium, to the project leader, or something similar. There are some projects with copyright held jointly by many developers, but there's almost always someone who you can point to and say "this person/organization holds copyright over the majority of the code". And even if it's not immediately obvious from the license who the copyright holder is, that doesn't matter in court; not knowing who has standing to prosecute is no defense.

    Also, notice that "Richard Stallman, the founder of the Free Software Foundation and the author of the GPL, was unable to comment in time for this article." A brief interview with RMS would surely have cleared this up as a non-issue.
    • The FSF recommends that free software developers assign their copyrights to the FSF, so that they can deal with violations.

      They absolutely do not recommend that.

      They suggest that people who modify GNU software hand the copyright to the FSF, but GNU software itself is just a tiny fraction of Free software (and an even smaller fraction of free software).

      Major Free software like Linux, Mozilla, and Openoffice.org has never had the FSF suggest giving over the copyright.
    • A brief interview with RMS would surely have cleared this up as a non-issue.

      I don't think there is such a thing as a brief interview with RMS.

  • Hard to determine author? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Eric Smith ( 4379 ) * on Wednesday June 01, 2005 @07:34PM (#12700399) Homepage Journal
    You mean, all those messages I sprinkle in my programs that say "Copyright 2005 Eric Smith" don't give them a hint?

  • Sigh, more morons reported on Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)

    by QuantumG ( 50515 ) <qg@biodome.org> on Wednesday June 01, 2005 @07:35PM (#12700403) Homepage Journal
    Everytime random lawyer X says something about Open Source without doing a trivial amount of fact checking it gets reported on Slashdot. Braindead news. If Lucie Guibault, assistant professor of intellectual-property law at the Institute for Information Law in Amsterdam had bothered to go read "How to use the GPL or LGPL" [gnu.org] she would have noted that the way to use the GPL is to state ON YOUR SOURCE CODE that it is copyright to you and that it is released under the TERMS OF THE GPL. Obviously if you don't do this you're not releasing your source code under the GPL, but in that case you're giving your source code out under NO LICENSE which means that others have NO RIGHTS to reuse the code.

    Then to point out the even greater boneheadedness of this story, let's say that EvilMegaCorp went to court and said "oh, we didn't think you owned this copyright, we thought the FSF did" and the judge agreed, the FSF would be in court the next day saying "no, we didn't write it, we wrote the license, but if you'd like to name us as the author of the software we'll gladly defend the copyright on it."

    So STFU and get back to teaching students how to swindle.

    • Then to point out the even greater boneheadedness of this story, let's say that EvilMegaCorp went to court and said "oh, we didn't think you owned this copyright, we thought the FSF did" and the judge agreed, ...

      And says "Oh, I see. You thought you were infringing on a completely different victim's copyright. Ergo, you knew you were infringing someone's copyright, you were just mistaken about whose. GUILTY! Willfull infringement. Triple damages (without even a copyright registration). Thank you for your

  • Its pretty easy to tell who owns copyright in any open source project. Most open source projects come with a tar.gz released archive containing one or more of the following files: README, INFO, CREDITS, AUTHORS, COPYING, etc... Any one of these files, in addition to the actual source code, shows clear evidence about who owns copyright in an open source project. Sometimes there is one person, sometimes more than one. The author of the article forgot to bring up these facts, and instead relies on spreadin
    • Credits aren't copyrights. For all anyone knows, the person who wrote the code transferred copyright to someone else, who isn't listed in the credits.

      Follow the advice of the article and explicitly claim copyright, otherwise some can mount a challenge.

      Ironic, isn't it. that the so many people rant about copyright yet the GPL depends on it.

  • Assistant professors can be wrong (Score:4, Insightful)

    by gvc ( 167165 ) on Wednesday June 01, 2005 @07:38PM (#12700431)
    I have exclusive copyright for my work, unless I transfer it in a written "instrument of conveyance."

    An infringer might claim that I have no standing, but could not possibly make that case as there is no instrument of conveyance, and I and FSF would both testify that I had not tranferred ownership.

    Since when was uncertainty as to the owner a defence? If I rip off your bicycle (to use the stupid IP as physical property analogy), am I less guilty because I thought I was ripping off somebody else's?

    • If I rip off your bicycle (to use the stupid IP as physical property analogy), am I less guilty because I thought I was ripping off somebody else's?

      No, but that is a criminal case. In a civil case, YOU, as the copyright owner, must bring suit in court to receive any relief (injunctive, compensatory, punitive, etc).

      The issue is that if they do not know that you have the rights to the software then they do not know that you have a right to bring the case, and while the other guy may be guilty as hell

      • "The issue is that if they do not know that you have the rights to the software then they do not know that you have a right to bring the case, and while the other guy may be guilty as hell of infringement, a case can't be heard if it can't be brought."

        Huh?

        "they do not know" ... they == infringers
        "you have the rights" ... you == copyright owner
        "other guy may be guilty" ... who?
        "case can't be brought" ... by whom against whom?

        I said that you as the copyright owner can bring suit against an infringer. It

        • Huh?

          "they do not know" ... they == infringers
          "you have the rights" ... you == copyright owner
          "other guy may be guilty" ... who?
          "case can't be brought" ... by whom against whom?

          No,
          "they do not know" ... they == The Court
          "you have the rights" ... you == copyright owner
          "other guy may be guilty" ... alleged infringer
          "case can't be brought" ... by Copyright owner against infringer

          Simple!

          Ian

      • I'd think that would be part of the evidence that I'd bring, and that they'd challenge, and if the "preponderance of the evidence" indicates I do indeed have valid copyright to at least some of the code in question, their challenge as to standing would fail. Right?

        Their not knowing whose copyright they were infringing isn't a defense of that infringement. Believing it to be public domain, or owned by someone who had given them permission, would be a defense, at least of willful infringement. It probably

    • I have exclusive copyright for my work, unless I transfer it in a written "instrument of conveyance."

      <snip>

      If I rip off your bicycle (to use the stupid IP as physical property analogy), am I less guilty because I thought I was ripping off somebody else's?

      Ah, but since a bicycle *is* an "instrument of conveyance"...

      *ducks*

  • The author is the copyright owner (Score:4, Informative)

    by Pedrito ( 94783 ) on Wednesday June 01, 2005 @07:42PM (#12700467)
    This is pretty stupid. The author of a work is the copyright owner in perpetuity unless they assign ownership to someone else. If there are multiple authors then the authors as a group own the copyright. This is the way copyright has always worked.

    A work is technically, and legally, copyright upon creation by the author. You don't have to register something with the US Copyright Office for it to be protected. The point of registering with the Copyright Office is to provide an official registration so that if you are legally challenged, it's likely the first person to register is the owner. But it's nothing more than a measure of protection.

    If I create a work and you register the copyright in your name, the burden of proof falls to me to prove that I created it first. But if I can do that, then legally I'm protected and you are not.

    So putting your name on it does nothing for it. If you want to protect it, go to the Copyright Office web site [copyright.gov], download the form, fill it out, and send it in with you $30. That's the best protection you can have.
    • The author of a work is the copyright owner in perpetuity

      Well, only for the duration of the copyright, anyway. Assuming the work is copyrightable.

      If there are multiple authors then the authors as a group own the copyright.

      Well, jointly, anyway.

      A work is technically, and legally, copyright upon creation by the author.

      Again, if copyrightable.

      You don't have to register something with the US Copyright Office for it to be protected.

      Unfortunately.

      The point of registering with the Copyright Offi
    • "A work is technically, and legally, copyright upon creation by the author."

      I have a question, but I think it'd help a great deal for you to understand that I do not understand GPL.

      Suppose person A writes software and releases it under GPL. Person B then takes the code and publishes changes to it 100% completely within the standards set by GPL.

      Who owns the code? Does person A own what person B did? Does person B own what person A did? Is there a 3rd option that I'm not aware of? Does person A have

      • Re:The author is the copyright owner (Score:4, Informative)

        by iCEBaLM ( 34905 ) on Wednesday June 01, 2005 @09:22PM (#12701180)
        People own copyright on their own code unless they specifically assign it to someone else. A owns his code, B owns his code. C's code is illegal and C is in a world of hurt because he committed infringement and is liable for the damages. A and B could strip out C's code once they found out and no harm can come to them.

        IANAL.

      • A work made for hire (Score:3, Informative)

        by tepples ( 727027 )

        Getting a little stickier here: What happens if person C, who's working at a corporation, contributes to the code but he signed an over-reaching agreement with his corp about ownership of his work.

        You're talking about a work-made-for-hire contract, I assume. C's employer owns the changes. C may not distribute the changes to the public unless and until C's employer distributes them to the public.

    • Last time I checked, copyright certainly does not last in perpetuity...
  • The copyright owner isn't the issue in most GPL cases, it's a question of abusing it, of which anyone can accuse the entity who breaches the license.

    For example, if I find that foo.bar.example.com include foo.bar.sourceforge.net GPL'd code, I can blow the whistle on foo.bar.example.com even though I've never had any involvement in foo.bar.sourceforge.net.
    I've got the same rights to foo.bar.sourceforge.net as the original author, thanks to the GPL.

    So the copyright ownership issue isn't that great.
    It ca

    • For example, if I find that foo.bar.example.com include foo.bar.sourceforge.net GPL'd code, I can blow the whistle on foo.bar.example.com even though I've never had any involvement in foo.bar.sourceforge.net.
      I've got the same rights to foo.bar.sourceforge.net as the original author, thanks to the GPL.

      You can "blow the whistle" all you want, but you can't sue if it's not your code. Thus the original author does have one right that you don't have.
  • Most countries, including the US, are signatories to the Berne convention and have aligned their copyritght law to the convention. That means that a work is owned by its author even if there is no explicit copyright notification or author's name: that in turn means that if you copy an anonymous work, the actual author may later sue you for copyright violation. And wrong again: if you somehow get confused and think the work is owned by the FSF, then you would need to get permission from the FSF before copyi
  • when you look at the header to the source....
    say :
    * Freequest IRCD - src/hosthash.c
    * Copyright (C) 2004-2005 Mark Rutherford (mark@freequest.net)

    who owns it? since I look at code at least several hours a day, how can you not see that its stated clearly in the header????
    sounds like another attack on the GPL to me.
  • Well, that's it then. I'm changing my name to Mercedes and stealing every Merc I can find. I mean, if the car owner wants to indicate that the car is theirs, why don't they engrave their name on it rather than leaving a Merc logo on it? I mean, it confuses me as to who really owns the car.
  • On the other hand, the GPL is just clear enough, that anyone reading it knows when he is in wrong doing.

    That is why there are so few trials involving the GPL in court: violators tend to make agreements before it even gets there.

    It happened just last month around here: on a list I subscribe too tehre are some lawyers who suypport Free Software. One of the members of the list noted that one program a large internet provider offered for free (beer) download for its subscribers was actually a renamed and closed GPLed Software. We on the list had the same doubt as the article proposes: in name of whom should we send a letter to the violators? The developers of said program were all from abroad - they might not even get interested in getting involved. Moreover, for the local lawyers to be able to legaly represent the foreigner developers, there would be quite a lot of bureaucratic entanglements.

    So, on the list, we decided just to send a lawyer letter pointing that their software was violating the GPL - said lawyer was representing no one in particular. Ok, it took some phone calls besides the letter, but in no much time, they complied and released the source code for downloading, as required by the license.

    So, IMHO, IANAL, ETC, even when a case actually gets into trial, a single developer, with no more than a few dozen lines of code, involved in the proccess is more than enough for the wrongdoing to get characterized.

  • What an idiot! (Score:4, Informative)

    by ucblockhead ( 63650 ) on Wednesday June 01, 2005 @08:23PM (#12700737) Homepage Journal
    You'd think a lawyer would have been smart enough to read this [fsf.org].

    Quote:

    Whichever license you plan to use, the process involves adding two elements to each source file of your program: a copyright notice (such as "Copyright 1999 Linda Jones"), and a statement of copying permission, saying that the program is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (or the Lesser GPL).

    A quick perusal of any GPL'd software in the world would have shown how full of shit the guy was.

    • In actuality you don't have to put "Copyright 1999 Linda Jones" if you are only distributing your code in countries that signed the Berne treaty. Berne did away with formalties such as 100% proper copyright notices. Having such a line in your code certainly helps in determining who has copyright, but it isn't required. Copyright is assumed to be 100% granted to the author of a work from the time of creation, with our without any copyright notice.

      When using a copyright notice (remember, not all nations are

  • Joe Hacker writes code for program.cc and releases it under the GPL. Jack N Box downloads the code, modifies it to modification.cc and posts it as GPL material. Jack N Box leaves town, dies, or otherwise steps off the face of the earth. Company X downloads modification.cc code uses it to make a propritary product and claims all ownership of the work, ignoring the terms of the GPL.

    Can Joe Hacker sue Company X for misuse of his source code (90% of the code is still his) even though the name listed (quit

    • Joe Hacker's code is still copyright Joe Hacker. When did he assign away his copyright? Not by using the GPL. Of course, it might be hard for Joe Hacker to find out where is code has ended up ... but that's life on the globe of corporate scumbags we call Earth.

    • No problem (Score:3, Informative)

      by bluGill ( 862 )

      There is no problem. Joe Hacker owns the copyright on the code he wrote, unless he signed it away. He did not give the copyright to Jack N. Box, so Jack N. Box's heirs do no have rights to that code. Those heirs do have rights to the code Jack N. Box wrote, which is only 10%. Company X can contact Jack N. Box's heirs for a different license, but they only have the right to that 10%. (And if they gave rights to everything they might be in trouble themselves for negotiating in bad faith since they sol

  • Headline should read: "Professional Troll Submits Poorly Thought Out, Misinformed Paper To Conference, Gets ZDNet's Attention, Gets Picked Up On Slashdot, And Thus Nets Publicity For Himself And Ad Impressions For ZDNet?"
  • Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but I've seen too much anti-F/OSS articles lately to consider it a mere coincidence.

    This "GPL may be valid, but it's unenforceable" today, the one with "the corporations are just using our ideals in order to make money" yesterday, and a series of "windows servers are cheaper, easier to patch and just as popular as *nix servers" articles last week. And all this just on /. , i've seen articles along the same tune on different (and not so linux-friendly) sites, too.

    This means "

  • It's funny, laugh (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Xtifr ( 1323 ) on Thursday June 02, 2005 @12:14AM (#12701944) Homepage
    Shouldn't this be filed under "It's Funny, Laugh" rather than "Your Rights Online"? Seems more like slapstick than much of anything else. How many times does it have to be said: you don't enforce the GPL, you enforce COPYRIGHT! The GPL (like "fair use") is a defense! You don't "enforce" a defense, you raise it - if you can.

  • The article may have a point! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Per Abrahamsen ( 1397 ) on Thursday June 02, 2005 @02:04AM (#12702253) Homepage
    Yes, as a zillion high rated comment already point out, there is no legal doubt that the author own the code. And a "copyright year name" statement is not needed, but anyway encouraged and common (the article actually also state that).

    However, the article is about damages, not ownership. If it is unclear to the defendant who the opposing legal party was, it may reduce the chance or size of damages awarded. At least in Holland. No question though, the defendant will be forced to stop the illegal distribution.

    Stopping the illegal distribution is what is most important to us, but a lawyer is usually paid to extract as many money as possible, so his point of view is obviously different.

    • It wouldn't be at all unclear who the opposing legal party is. They're the ones at the table marked "Plaintiff", who keep sending you legal-looking documents, and prove to the judge that they do in fact own copyright to the work in question. That they didn't know ahead of time who they'd be infringing against would be irrelevant unless they can show they thought they had a valid license to use it, or otherwise didn't need a license at all.

    • The problem with that theory is that the person is (supposedly) talking about the GPL, but what you're saying has nothing to do with the GPL or any other license. It could be said about BSD code or the semi-free (no-commercial-distribution) editor that Linus originally used to write his kernel, or even just some random code I put on my web page that comes with no license whatsoever!

      There may be a problem (of sorts) with code in general having less-than-perfect attributions and/or copyright statements, but
  • The FSF would LOVE to own the copyright and handle the case in court. The violators are going to argue in court: "Sorry mr Torvalds, we asked the FSF for premission to use your code in our product and they agreed"? Or: "Oh, we thought the FSF owned the copyright to the code we copied, and they are in a different jurisdiction, so we thought you couldn't sue us"?

    This argument is completely bull. You don't need to know who will sue you to adhere to the rules. The rules are pretty clear.

    Now if you want to ask

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