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Microsoft's proclamation on GPLv3

Microsoft's proclamation on GPLv3

Posted Jul 6, 2007 19:43 UTC (Fri) by dmantione (guest, #4640)
In reply to: Microsoft's proclamation on GPLv3 by dmarti
Parent article: Microsoft's proclamation on GPLv3

You need permission of the copyright holder for multiplication of works
or making them public. Napster did the second.


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Microsoft's proclamation on GPLv3

Posted Jul 6, 2007 20:40 UTC (Fri) by kripkenstein (subscriber, #43281) [Link]

"You need permission of the copyright holder for multiplication of works
or making them public. Napster did the second."

It isn't very simple: There is 'making them public', and there is 'facilitating copyright circumvention', such as hosting a site with links, and so forth. It isn't obviously clear how the law will fall on this matter. Fact is, Microsoft are doing more than facilitating distribution; they are initiating it (giving out coupons).

The fact that Microsoft is saying that the coupons are no longer useful for GPL3 code should indicate to us that Microsoft takes this matter very seriously, which means that the FSF might be right.

Time will tell.

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