It's definitely not true, at least in some countries. For example, France: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2009/09/big-gpl-copyright-enforcement-w

It's definitely not true, at least in some countries. For example, France: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2009/09/big-gpl-copyright-enforcement-win-in-paris-court-of-appeals/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2009/09/big-gp... "It's a commonly held belief that only the copyright holder of a work can enforce the license's terms—but that's not true in France. People who received software under the GNU GPL can also request compliance, since the license grants them rights from the authors." After all, the rights of the customer (to receive the source code) are also being violated.