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Re: Copyright Misuse Doctrine in Apple v. Psystar


From: amicus_curious
Subject: Re: Copyright Misuse Doctrine in Apple v. Psystar
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 15:02:48 -0500


"Hyman Rosen" <hyrosen@mail.com> wrote in message news:vtinl.10680$2h5.6532@newsfe11.iad...
amicus_curious wrote:
Even though Verizon is openly distributing a product that contains
> GPL licensed software, they do not provide the source.

If it's the routers themselves, then if Verizon buys them from
Actiontec and distributes them to customers, they do not need
to follow the GPL because of first sale. I don't have one of
these routers, so I don't know whether the router itself comes
in the box with the proper GPL notification.

If it's the firmware link, then it's not clear that Verizon is
copying the software in a way that the law would interpret
as requiring separate copyright permission - there's an
"actiontec gateway" involved, and I don't even know if it has
been settled as to which party violates copyright when a download
is requested.

Of course its the routers themselves. That's what the SDLC sued them over, namely disributing the routers without providing the GPL source. The SDLC seems to have come to the conclusion that they were not going to win and that it was going to cost them legal fees and prestige.


> The SDLC sued Verizon originally to make this happen, but then
> offered a dismissal (with predjudice) to vacate the suit. That
> is fleeing the field, no matter what motivation you want to impute
> to the SDLC.

The way I would interpret this is that once the SFLC began dealing
with Verizon and Actiontec, they became privy to more detailed
information than they had from the outside, and decided that having
Actiontec provide the GPLed sources was sufficient.

You are being far too kind to the SDLC. They had been conducting barratry against honest users of the Busybox utilities and embedded Linux. A parade of successes against one-trick pony companies apparently made them forget the basic laws and they tried the trick on Verizon and were soon shown the error of their ways. They 180'd out of the problem ASAP.


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