Re: Psystar's legal reply brief in response to Apple

[Hyman Rosen]

On 8/3/2010 4:21 PM, RJack wrote:
> The exclusive right to copy and distribute is a *necessary* but not a
> *sufficient* condition to control distribution of a derivative work of
> two authors. The fact that you don't understand this difference is
> glaringly obvious.

The "work as a whole" to which the GPL refers is not (necessarily) a
derivative work (which is an alteration of an existing work representing
a significant act of authorship). It is usually just a combined work,
consisting of linked-together GPLed code and other code. The exclusive
rights granted to copyright holders by law permits them to exercise
extremely fine-grained control over the copying of their works, and that
includes whether they grant permission for copying when the work is part
of a combined work. Such permission must be obtained separately for each
such combined work.

> > The GPL permits a work to be copied as part of a larger work only if
> > that work as a whole is distributed under the GPL.
>
> Which, of course, is the result of a *contractual* agreement between a
> preexisting author and a modifying author who are in contractual privity.

It's the result of a license granted by the copyright holder.

> As I said, an exclusive right to distribute a derivative work "as a
> whole" does not exist in the Copyright Act.

Neither does a right to copy and distribute a work "in hardcover form".
The Copyright Act grants holders the exclusive rights to all forms of
copying and distribution. The holders may then hand out fine-grained
permissions as they see fit.