Re: SFLC's GPL court enforcement -- track record

[rjack]

Hyman Rosen wrote:
> Rjack wrote:
> > The GPL is a purported third party donee beneficiary contract:
> >   b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in
> >     whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any
> >     part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third
> >     parties under the terms of this License.
>
> Notice that "licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties"
> does not mean that there is any obligation to deliver anything to
> them.

True. No distribution no problem. So what? Presumably some authors do want their 
code to be distributed though.

> It only means that third parties have license to the software
> such that they are permitted to do anything they want with it as
> long as they too follow the GPL.

The trouble is you can't write a copyright license that controls "all third 
parties" as long "as they follow the GPL". Congress specifically forbid this
situation with 17 USC sec. 301.

Sincerely
Rjack :)


-- "[I]f an extra element is required instead of or in addition to the acts of
reproduction, performance, distribution or display in order to constitute a
state-created cause of action, there is no preemption, provided that the extra
element changes the nature of the action so that it is qualitatively different
from a copyright infringement claim." Stromback v. New Line Cinema, 384 F.3d 283
(United States Court Of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit 2004) --