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On assignment as it relates to enforcementOn assignment as it relates to enforcementPosted Dec 21, 2012 1:50 UTC (Fri) by bkuhn (subscriber, #58642)In reply to: On assignment as it relates to enforcement by paulj Parent article: GnuTLS, copyright assignment, and GNU project governance paulj asked: Why not, instead of transferring copyright, have contributors give some kind of right of representation? I.e. grant the right to act on behalf of the copyright owner when it came to copyright infringement, to the extent needed to negotiate for and/or sue for any damage or restitution? Give the copyright holder a right to veto any action perhaps. [ Speaking purely on behalf of Conservancy first.] Amusingly, you've basically precisely described the agreement that Conservancy makes with BusyBox, Linux and Samba copyright holders whom Conservancy represents. However, I'd point out again: this is the kind of a thing that violators love to use as a distraction to waste time. For example, if you read the history of the Conservancy v. Best Buy et al case, you'll see plenty of the Defendants arguing that Conservancy should be fully dismissed from participating in the action. Again, Conservancy found that argument incorrect and spurious, and the judge agreed and never dismissed us from the case as lead Plaintiff. Yet, I spent hours helping our lawyers draft responses on that issue, which they in turn spent many more hours on too! That's what a lot of people don't understand about USA Court proceedings or indeed any type of legalistic enforcement action: the other side obsessively looks for every pointless issue they can find and then pretends it is the biggest show-stopping problem in the world. This is particularly true when you line a non-profit with very little resources up against a big, wealthy tech company who hires fancy $800/hour (or more!) lawyers. Their strategy is to wear you down by wasting your time. The simpler the situation, the easier the enforcement is. [ Ok, putting both Conservancy and FSF hats on for the rest of the response.] Conservancy has decided it wants to take on this complication, but I wouldn't begrudge FSF for not being sure it wants to have to do this work. I think the ideal situation is when the non-profit holds an overwhelming majority of the copyrights, as that would get most of the benefits of having all the copyright but still not make copyright assignment necessary for every little patch, but rather just from the really heavy contributors.
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On assignment as it relates to enforcement Posted Dec 21, 2012 19:24 UTC (Fri) by lonely_bear (subscriber, #2726) [Link]
Out of topic. Why would lawyers are allow to do that without punishment? When they are wasting everybody's time using pointless arguments, should they be fined, up to forbid from practicing in law? We will have less ridiculous court cases.
On assignment as it relates to enforcement Posted Dec 21, 2012 20:19 UTC (Fri) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
because sometimes they are right to pick at what others consider 'minor details'
The Justice system in the US is biased towards the accused (in spite of what it sometimes seems when reading headlines, those headlines are there _because_ they are unusual)
As for the reasoning behind it, Ben Franklin put it
> it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer
John Adams wrote a more extensive justification, part of which goes:
> It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished, for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished.
> But if innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned, perhaps to die, then the citizen will say, "whether I do good or whether I do evil is immaterial, for innocence itself is no protection," and if such an idea as that were to take hold in the mind of the citizen that would be the end of security whatsoever.
On assignment as it relates to enforcement Posted Dec 23, 2012 2:35 UTC (Sun) by JanC_ (guest, #34940) [Link]
It should never be forbidden to use "minor details" in a court case, but using things like "you don't own all or a majority of the copyright", which have been proven to be false several times already in previous court cases, should be considered a sign of either an incompetent lawyer or one who tries to play games with the court.
On assignment as it relates to enforcement Posted Dec 23, 2012 14:09 UTC (Sun) by bkuhn (subscriber, #58642) [Link] dlang, I don't think these quotes related to criminal prosecution relates correctly to civil legal matters. While I agree that minor details sometimes ferret out major issues, many defense attorneys in civil matters for wealthy clients use the system's tendency to allow such issues to be heard as a way to outspend plaintiffs. That happens to us all the time: it ain't cheap trying to enforce the GPL for the community! And, to be brutally honest, we even have people in the community who want businesses to adopt Free Software, even if it's in violation of the licenses. So, they work against us too, sometimes.
On assignment as it relates to enforcement Posted Jan 6, 2013 17:30 UTC (Sun) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link]
Because the American system (read Groklaw for enlightenment) expects lawyers to zealously advocate for their client. Unlike in jurisdictions like the UK, which (as I like to put it) assumes that "people acting in good faith don't end up in court".
As a result, "loser pays" means that one side (not necessarily the loser!) ends up paying pretty much the ENTIRE bill for the court case. If Bradley was in the UK, he would typically find that, in the normal case, all his victims would be paying him to sue them.
Under those circumstances, of course, he probably wouldn't have much work (not that that would displease him).
Cheers,
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