At Sat, 10 Oct 2009 15:09:49 +0100 Nigel Feltham <[email protected]> wrote:
> > Alexander Terekhov wrote: > > > > > Nigel Feltham wrote: > > [...] > >> The only permission you have to make any extra copies of busybox is that > >> provided by the GPL in exchange for following it's rules which specify > >> that source has to be provided. > > > > But that's pure license/contract breach claim, not copyright > > infringement. Consider also > > > > http://www.citizen.org/litigation/forms/cases/CaseDetails.cfm?cID=437 > > It's both - copying software without permission is a copyright infringement > and the only thing that gives you permission to do any copying of GPL > software that isn't provided as part of normal copyright law is the GPL > licence. If you breach the terms of the license then you no longer have > permission to distribute copies of the software (other than on media > provided by the copyright holder) so are infringing copyright law as well. I think that the point of the citizen.org case (eBay vender vs Autodesk), is that if you have A copy in your possesion, you have the right to dispose of that copy (eg selling it). This is distint from *making a copy* of the copy. The only way this is a copyright infringement would be if you also had *made a copy* of the software (which would probably include the copy made when installing the software). > > This is the main reason companies who breach the terms of the GPL are > normally so quick to resolve the situation (where just letting customers > know where to get the source is enough) - until they comply with the > licence they are distributing copies of the software without permission of > the copyright holder and just giving customers a link to a sourcecode > website is far easier than risking ending up in a copyright infringement > court. > > This is also the main reason SCO chickened out of their attempt to > invalidate the GPL - they presumably realised that if the GPL is invalid > then they never had permission to distribute the code and had committed > mass piracy of every GPL licenced product they've ever distributed. Either > the licence is valid and they're complying with it's terms or they're > pirates, hard to argue that the licence doesn't exist under those > circumstances. > -- Robert Heller -- 978-544-6933 Deepwoods Software -- Download the Model Railroad System http://www.deepsoft.com/ -- Binaries for Linux and MS-Windows [email protected] -- http://www.deepsoft.com/ModelRailroadSystem/ _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
