> From: Ronnie Sahlberg [mailto:ronnie_sahlberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> 3, convince Eben Moglen that this is one of the most blatant
> and clear cut
> cases of GPL violation yet and might be the one
> they need to get GPL verified in a court of law.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20040226003735733
Eben Moglen at Harvard Law School recently: (sorry about the length, but I'm
not abridging this masterful prose.)
...In order to defend yourself in a case in which you are infringing the
freedom of free software, you have to be prepared to meet a call that I make
reasonably often with my colleagues at the Foundation who are here tonight.
That telephone call goes like this. "Mr. Potential Defendant, you are
distributing my client's copyrighted work without permission. Please stop.
And if you want to continue to distribute it, we'll help you to get back
your distribution rights, which have terminated by your infringement, but
you are going to have to do it the right way."
At the moment that I make that call, the potential defendant's lawyer now
has a choice. He can cooperate with us, or he can fight with us. And if he
goes to court and fights with us, he will have a second choice before him.
We will say to the judge, "Judge, Mr. Defendant has used our copyrighted
work, copied it, modified it and distributed it without permission. Please
make him stop."
One thing that the defendant can say is, "You're right. I have no license."
Defendants do not want to say that, because if they say that they lose. So
defendants, when they envision to themselves what they will say in court,
realize that what they will say is, "But Judge, I do have a license. It's
this here document, the GNU GPL. General Public License," at which point,
because I know the license reasonably well, and I'm aware in what respect he
is breaking it, I will say, "Well, Judge, he had that license but he
violated its terms and under Section 4 of it, when he violated its terms, it
stopped working for him."
But notice that in order to survive moment one in a lawsuit over free
software, it is the defendant who must wave the GPL. It is his permission,
his master key to a lawsuit that lasts longer than a nanosecond. This, quite
simply, is the reason that lies behind the statement you have heard -- Mr.
McBride made it here some weeks ago -- that there has never been a court
test of the GPL.
To those who like to say there has never been a court test of the GPL, I
have one simple thing to say: Don't blame me. I was perfectly happy to roll
any time. It was the defendants who didn't want to do it. And when for ten
solid years, people have turned down an opportunity to make a legal
argument, guess what? It isn't any good.
...
--
Richard Urwin, Private
"No 9000 series computer has ever made a mitsake or corrubiteddatatato."
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