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"Corley denied the motion, and in doing so, set the precedent that licenses like the GNU GPL can be treated like legal contracts, and developers can legitimatel
by rlpb 9y ago
"Corley denied the motion, and in doing so, set the precedent that licenses like the GNU GPL can be treated like legal contracts, and developers can legitimately sue when those contracts are breached."
The GNU GPL was written on the basis that if someone does not accept its terms, then that without any other license from the copyright holder, redistribution puts that person in violation of copyright law.
Suing for damages on the basis of a breach of copyright law clearly does not require any contract.
So this is more about a technicality of the legal process in this particular case, rather than anything about whether copyleft is legally enforceable or not in general.
Specifically, because the motion denial was based on the defendant's own admission being deemed to be the agreement of a contract, this says nothing about the general enforceability of the GPL (future defendants could simply avoid making such an admission).
Further, since the ruling was in response to a specific motion, it only concerns the claims made in that motion: about whether a contract exists in this particular case. It says nothing about the "copyright violation if you don't accept the license" mechanism of copyleft.
Finally, the article does not provide any evidence that there has been any ruling that determined that the GPL is an enforceable legal contract, contrary to its title. The ruling as quoted just says that the defendant, by its own admission, did accept to enter in to the GPL-defined contract.
- imanewsman 9y agoIn order to dismiss the motion, the court had to explain why the GNU GPL is an enforceable contract: https://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/california/candce/3:2016cv06982/305835/32 https://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/califo...
- rlpb 9y agoNo. The plantiff made two key claims: breach of contract and copyright infringment. This is sensible, because the defendant has either accepted the GPL (and thus is in breach of contract), or has infringed copyright. This is key to the mechanism of copyleft. By suing for both, the defendant cannot just choose whichever is the most convenient and win on the technicality that the other was not considered by the court. The judge ruled that the claim of breach of contract cannot be dismissed on the basis that the contract does not exist, because the defendant has effectively admitted that it did exist. The judge also ruled that the claim of copyright cannot be dismissed on the basis of jurisdiction. None of these things relate to the enforceability of the GPL in general.
- imanewsman 9y agoI don't think you're wrong, I just think you're splitting hairs. The order says the license is a contract that exists, sure. Contracts are enforceable.
- __ddd__ 9y agoNot all contracts are enforceable. I would be surprised if the entirety of v3 is enforceable
- uiri 9y agoOut of curiosity: which parts of v3 do you believe to be unenforceable? I think that, given the time, effort, and professional expertise which went into drafting it, that the entire thing should be enforceable.
- DannyBee 9y agoNo. The order says that iff what the plaintiff says is true, a contract probably exists :)
- bighi 9y agoBut if for some reason some court rules the GPL invalid, doesn't it mean that the companies using the GPL'ed software are violating copyright? Because the GPL license is the only thing granting them the rights to use that intellectual property, right?
- rlpb 9y ago> ...doesn't it mean that the companies using the GPL'ed software are violating copyright? It may be a technical violation. This wouldn't in itself make any difference to anything, however. It would only matter if a court would then award damages to copyright holders as a consequence of the violation. A violation in civil law doesn't mean anything in practice except when damages are awarded (and only changes behaviour when damages could be awarded). Damages are awarded based on harm done. I think a copyright holder would struggle to show that any harm was done by the defendant, especially as the defendant would have been acting in good faith. Of course this depends on the details of the reason the court ruled the GPL invalid, so it's not really possible to speculate on your hypothetical further.
- beagle3 9y agoBut copyright is different; See [0] under Statutory Damages. EFF / Github should probable set up a "register copyright for this release" to make it easier for OS developers to use this feature of copyright law.
- benchaney 9y agoThe court could rule that part of the license is invalid, but not all of it.
- nolemurs 9y ago> Suing for damages on the basis of a breach of copyright law clearly does not require any contract. I came here to say basically this. To make this really explicit - this result is completely and utterly unsurprising and does not set any new meaningful precedent. Nothing specific to the GPL was implicated. Using someone else's source code without permission has always been, and continues to be a violation of copyright law.