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ELCE11: Till Jaeger on AVM vs. CybitsELCE11: Till Jaeger on AVM vs. CybitsPosted Nov 2, 2011 16:06 UTC (Wed) by xav (guest, #18536)Parent article: ELCE11: Till Jaeger on AVM vs. Cybits
How comes all interesting GPL cases happen in Germany ?
If it's because the legal system is in better shape there, I hope it won't be lost when (if ?) diluted into the EU.
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ELCE11: Till Jaeger on AVM vs. Cybits Posted Nov 2, 2011 16:41 UTC (Wed) by stefan_schmidt (guest, #67347) [Link]
> How comes all interesting GPL cases happen in Germany ?
I think several facts are related to this. First of all Harald Welte is from Germany and thus gpl-violations.org has all its cases here. Another point is that in other countries like the US such cases are often handled out of court. AFAIK the FSF is doing such GPL violations work in the US as well but tries to handle this outside of the court.
regards
ELCE11: Till Jaeger on AVM vs. Cybits Posted Nov 2, 2011 16:42 UTC (Wed) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link]
You could equally take it to be a bad sign. In the US we know that the FSF and others have been able to persuade various organisations that they should comply because they would lose in court. That's actually a better place to be, because trials are expensive and somewhat unpredictable, any good lawyer will tell you that an actual lawsuit should be the last resort.
It could be a neutral sign, maybe German companies are just more willing to "take a punt" on going to court rather than settling before hand. Or it could be that Germany has an unusual number of violators.
But mostly I think it's one person, Harald Welte.
ELCE11: Till Jaeger on AVM vs. Cybits Posted Nov 2, 2011 16:46 UTC (Wed) by stefan_schmidt (guest, #67347) [Link]
> But mostly I think it's one person, Harald Welte.
Just to make this clear here. Its not like Harald is dragging the companies into court. The large majority of cases gpl-violation has handled are out of court as well.
And this case was already brought in front of the court by AVM and Cybits. He just joined them to make sure his opinion and rights as license holder are reflected in the ruling.
regards
German rules Posted Nov 3, 2011 3:42 UTC (Thu) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link]
As I understand it, too, German law gives you a deadline after which you lose all enforcement rights if you haven't filed. Hence, if negotiations drag on as they tend to do, you are obliged to file in court or you lose automatically.
ELCE11: Till Jaeger on AVM vs. Cybits Posted Nov 3, 2011 9:33 UTC (Thu) by jschrod (subscriber, #1646) [Link]
You are right that trials should be the last resort -- and actually, Harald Welte always tries to settle out of court first.
But a very big difference between US and Germany is that trials are not as expensive here as in the US. For each law case there's a "standard" lawyer fee that's regulated and that's dependent on the amount of money involved ("streitsumme", didn't find a translation for that). First, the money involved is not as high as in the US, and second, the loser pays that standard fee of the winner's side. A difference might also be that we have a civil law system instead of the Anglo-American common law system, but that's for a lawyer to explain. ;-)
ELCE11: Till Jaeger on AVM vs. Cybits Posted Nov 4, 2011 13:56 UTC (Fri) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]
"contested sum" or "disputed sum", though that's by applying dutch ("streit" sounds like it's the analogue of the dutch "strijd" to me) and Google Translate. ;)
ELCE11: Till Jaeger on AVM vs. Cybits Posted Nov 28, 2011 1:49 UTC (Mon) by stock (guest, #5849) [Link]
"How comes all interesting GPL cases happen in Germany ?"
Germany is one of the last real innovative countries in the EU.
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