Re: Possible GPL violation: novero HT-4, HT-5 (used in many Volkswagen-group cars)

[Bruce Perens]

On 12/18/2013 02:06 AM, Eli Greenbaum wrote: On Monday, December 16, 2013 5:55 PM Bruce Perens wrote:   I think you overstate the clarity of US law regarding the applicability of the first sale doctrine to resales of goods containing embedded software. U.S. case law has indeed thrashed around and we have cases on both sides of the issue. However, it may be that most uses of GPL defeat the various first-sale and exhaustion doctrines because there is not in general a sale by the copyright holder, only by subsequent conveyors of embedded versions of the softwware who do not hold copyright rights. Conveyance is only through the license, without any direct monetary compensation. In Jacobsen v. Katzer the appeals court accepted that all of the downstream parties compensated the author through honoring that author's license terms. Could a judge twist this to apply a first-sale or exhaustion doctrine after only _one_ party honored the license terms? It isn't really a good fit.     Thanks     Bruce