Copyright [LWN.net]

Copyright

Posted Oct 31, 2007 0:53 UTC (Wed) by drag (subscriber, #31333)
In reply to: Copyright by clugstj
Parent article: Monsoon Multimedia GPL lawsuit settled

Well also, if I understand correctly, if (in the unlikely event) the GPL is invalid then the
copyrights don't evaporate and the software becomes 'public domain'. If the GPL is fought and
defeated then the copyrights go right back to the original copyright holders and a new license
would need to be drawn up.

(Log in to post comments)

Posted Nov 3, 2007 1:00 UTC (Sat) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link]

if ... the GPL is invalid

I don't think the adjective "invalid" has any legal meaning with respect to a copyright license.

But it may be that a particular condition of the license is null and therefore the license exists without the licensee having to meet that condition. I don't know much about copyright licenses, but I know in contracts it is not uncommon for the law to remove a clause and the rest of the contract still stands.

The debate I've heard isn't over whether the license or any part of it is invalid -- it's over what the conditions described in the license actually are. In a particular case, one person believes it is a condition of the license that a particular piece of source code be distributed, while another person believes there is no such condition.

That's what would be nice to have a judgment on.