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


From: Alexander Terekhov
Subject: Re: SFLC's GPL court enforcement -- track record
Date: Sat, 08 Dec 2007 21:06:48 +0100

rjack wrote:
[...]
> Once a federal court reviews the GPL on its legal merits the propaganda
> ploy of dismissal without prejudice and subsequent claims of "the GPL
> won in court" will end -- abruptly.

You mean that PJ of Groklaw would stop blathering that

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2007120713435029

"two principal developers already successfully sued Monsoon Media"

???

I can believe that. :-)

BTW, on Groklaw, for the brief time, there was a reply to PJ's comment

------
The GPL is not a contract. It's a license, a
copyright license. 
------

reply:

------
> The GPL is not a contract. 

Eh? 

http://www.jbb.de/judgment_dc_frankfurt_gpl.pdf

"On behalf of the people JUDGMENT ... The GPL grants anyone who enters
into such contract... contractual relationship between the authors and
Defendant ... incorporated into the contract by virtue of the preamble
of the GPL ...  Plaintiff, or the licensors from whom Plaintiff
derives his right, have not violated any contractual obligations
themselves ... Defendant, who violated contractual obligations"

> The GPL is not a contract. It's a license, a
> copyright license. 

"Whether this constitutes a gratuitous license, or one for a 
reasonable compensation, must, of course, depend upon the
circumstances; but the relation between the parties thereafter in
respect of any suit brought must be held to be contractual, and not an
unlawful invasion of the rights of the owner." De Forest Radio Tel. &
Tel. Co. v. United States, 273 U.S. 236, (1927)

"Whether express or implied, a license is a contract 'governed by
ordinary principles of state contract law.'" McCoy v. Mitsuboshi
Cutlery, Inc., 67. F.3d 917, (Fed. Cir. 1995)

The highly respected Judge Richard Posner of the Seventh Circuit
Court of Appeals ruled in 2003: "If a breach of contract (and a
copyright license is just a type of contract)..."; In re Aimster,
334 F.3d 643 (7th Cir. 2003).

This licensing principle--that all intellectual property licenses
are a type of contract--was explained to Richard Stallman by
Professor Micheal Davis in 1999. 
See:

http://lists.essential.org/upd-discuss/msg00131.html
------

and now it's been censored out. Amazing. 

"Free software is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the 
concept, you should think of free as in free speech..."

regards,
alexander.

--
"Plaintiffs’ copyrights are unique and valuable property whose market
value is impossible to assess"

                             -- SOFTWARE FREEDOM LAW CENTER, INC.


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