Re: The SFLC has pleaded their clients right out of court

[RJack]

peterwn wrote:
> On Apr 16, 2:36 am, Hyman Rosen <hyro...@mail.com> wrote:
> > On 4/15/2010 9:43 AM, RJack wrote:
> >
> > > The statement ". . . (a) Plaintiffs’ copyrights are unique and
> > > valuable property whose market value is impossible to assess, . .
> > > ." automatically establishes the fact that any alleged injury is 
> > > "conjectural and hypothetical". The SFLC lawyers have pleaded
> > > their clients right out of Court.
> > Unfortunately for you, the court does not agree with you: 
> > <http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions/08-1001.pdf> The choice to
> > exact consideration in the form of compliance with the open source
> > requirements of disclosure and explanation of changes, rather than
> > as a dollar-denominated fee, is entitled to no less legal
> > recognition. Indeed, because a calculation of damages is inherently
> > speculative, these types of license restrictions might well be
> > rendered meaningless absent the ability to enforce through
> > injunctive relief.
>
> This is also in line with the fundamental philosophy of copyright.
>
> A purely monetarist attitude would cause great difficulty in the case
>  of something like the Mona Lisa where assessing a monetary value
> would be elusive.

One need only offer it on the open market at auction. Verifiable legal
appraisals of property occur thousands of time each day. The value of a
nonexclusive copyright license like the GPL is called its "contractual
interest".  What US law does not recognize is the value of "moral rights".

> In any case the GPL would apparently be less open to this form of 
> attack than the licence at issue in the case.

Sincerely,
RJack :)