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While I fully support the Software Freedom Conservancy's aims, this blog post makes zero sense and misconstrues what Vizio is doing in court. Removal of a case
by otterley 5y ago
While I fully support the Software Freedom Conservancy's aims, this blog post makes zero sense and misconstrues what Vizio is doing in court.
Removal of a case from a State court to Federal court is a routine procedural matter. It's merely an attempt for a party to get into a court that might be more favorable to their arguments. Either party can file a removal request, and it happens all the time.
- pabs3 5y agoIts clear from the document Vizio submitted that the intent of Vizio is to kill the ability of third parties to sue over GPL violations by convincing the court to turn the state court breach of contract claim into a federal court copyright violation claim, which can presumably only brought by copyright holders. Thats basically what the Conservancy post means by "Vizio's belief that consumers have no third-party beneficiary rights under copyleft". The rest of the post follows directly from that.
- otterley 5y agoOK, but a FRCP 12(b)(6) motion (or its CA law equivalent) to dismiss the breach of contract claim can be heard in either court, as can adjudication upon the merits of the claim itself. The change-of-venue motion is orthogonal to that.
- pabs3 5y agoHmm, the LWN comments (link in another comment) seem to indicate that contract law is a state thing and copyright law a federal thing.
- otterley 5y agoThey are, but Federal cases can be adjudicated in State courts (though they rarely are); and State law breach-of-contract claims can be adjudicated in Federal courts.