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"Someone" owns the rights. They too bought the burden of copyright violation.
by crankylinuxuser 7y ago
"Someone" owns the rights.
They too bought the burden of copyright violation.
- tyingq 7y agoAssets do sometimes just go nowhere.
- duskwuff 7y agoEspecially when they're heavily encumbered assets, e.g. when they're part of a licensed game whose license expired long ago. (Like this one!)
- microcolonel 7y agoWell, the license to the publisher may have, but the license from the publisher to the consumer is perpetual, and subject to the first sale doctrine.
- ralph84 7y agoThat's not how asset sales work. The new copyright owner wouldn't be liable for the previous copyright owner's actions. And if the new copyright owner isn't distributing binaries that include the GPL code they haven't violated the GPL.
- vageli 7y ago> That's not how asset sales work. The new copyright owner wouldn't be liable for the previous copyright owner's actions. And if the new copyright owner isn't distributing binaries that include the GPL code they haven't violated the GPL. Interesting, so even if the new copyright holder profited off of the asset, they wouldn't have to comply with the GPL? This is an interesting parallel to real estate, where the last person holding the bag has to perform environmental cleanup, etc.
- tylersmith 7y agoThe violation is in the distribution. If the current copyright holder distributed copies then he violated the license but more than likely they simply own the copyright to the code and other IP but haven't distributed anything.
- isostatic 7y agoSo form a company Profit from blatant copyright infringement When the court case eventually comes, wind up the company, move the assets to another company, and you’re quids in
- teddyh 7y agoThe law does not work like technology and code. A judge would see through that in a heartbeat and go “You thought that would work? You’re kidding, right?”.
- hirsin 7y agoTell that to the construction industry. This is incredibly common behavior for industries and housing construction - its what gets you out of superfund sites and repairing the subpar housing you threw up in 2010.
- teddyh 7y agoI woud assume that to be a case of: 1. Big Company gets what it wants because Big. Everybody pretends it’s a loophole, in order to get out of having to get in trouble with Big Company. 2. Smaller later companies uses same “loophole” and nobody can say anything, because that would be tantamount to accusing Big Company of misdeeds, and get into trouble. I suspect these kind of situations are unstable, since as time goes by, the “loophole” will be abused more and more, and eventually it becomes untenable, and a judge will rule the “loophole” moot, (especially if the statue of limitations has conveniently expired for the crimes of Big Company). This process might be slowed in slower industries like construction and pollution, but I would imagine it to be inevitable. My point is, since this probably only works because Big Company, it only works in similar situations where point 2 applies. It does not validate the general theory of why such things would be judged to be legal in other situations in other industries.
- unreal37 7y agoI would bet money against this being true.