The GPL Is a License, not a Contract [LWN.net]

The GPL Is a License, not a Contract

Posted Dec 4, 2003 8:52 UTC (Thu) by bbencic (guest, #9213)
Parent article: The GPL Is a License, not a Contract

First of all, thanks for this great article.It is very clear.
But I have a question. This article explains what is the GPL (and its consequences) under the US laws.
Can someone explain me if the GPL can be interpreted in the same way under the European laws (or in my case, under Belgian laws) ? Aren't there any subtle differences which allow a different interpretation of the GPL in other countries ?

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The GPL Is a License, not a Contract

Posted Dec 4, 2003 9:38 UTC (Thu) by sasha (subscriber, #16070) [Link]

I do not know about West-European lows, but I can speak about Russia.
Some lowers thinks that GPL is enforcable in Russia, and some lowers think in other way. There are 2 problems:

1. GPL can't be translated to Russian. Well, there are some translations, but they have no legal force, as it is written in the GPL. Russian low is very complex in this point, and there are circumstances when license in foreign language can't be forced.

2. Russian lows are not USA lows. GPL is constructed to work with USA lows, with their concepts and so on. The usual thing -- many USA people thinks that USA is the only country in the world. As a result, it does not work.

There are some known violates of GPL in Russia. Nobody tries to do anything with this.

The only good thing is that MS EULA does not comply to Russian low as well as GPL. And there exist some court decisions about MS EULA. Of course, most people does not know about all that things.

I think, it is good time to re-write GPL and make it work in many contries.

The GPL Is a License, not a Contract

Posted Dec 4, 2003 9:59 UTC (Thu) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

Actually, one of the main goals of the GPL was to have it work in every country. That's why it doesn't contain any references to US law, or US precedent.

I haven't heard anyone suggest that it's not enforceable in the EU. (except for two legal studys that were funded by Microsoft.)

GPL and foreign laws

Posted Dec 4, 2003 16:05 UTC (Thu) by emk (subscriber, #1128) [Link]

Hmmm. I'm not a lawyer, but I can see several potential issues here.

The GPL is a license under copyright law. Because of various treaties, copyright law tends to be fairly similar in most countries.

The GPL is a unilateral permission--it simply allows you to do something you would not normally be allowed to do. Therefore, if the GPL is invalid in a given country, it's probably technically illegal to distribute GPL'd software at all. In this way, the GPL is a lot stronger than Microsoft's EULA in many jurisdictions.

It's also possible that a country might have different laws about how invalid licenses are handled, or what consitutes an implicit contract. So it's not clear-cut.

Now, it's not worth any US author's time to sue in Russian courts anyway. Maybe in Europe (or possibly Japan).

Anyway, this is just my random thoughts. Hire a lawyer if you need legal advice.

The GPL Is a License, not a Contract - Russian law

Posted Dec 4, 2003 18:02 UTC (Thu) by Ross (subscriber, #4065) [Link]

First off I'm not a lawyer and I don't know anything about Russian law.
Having said that...

Actually the GPL was designed to work in many countries. I assume
Russia signed the Berne convention. If so, it should be enforcable
because copyrights are recognized without registration and cover
distribution and creation of derivative works.

So even if item 1 is a problem which makes the GPL invalid, 2 is not
a problem (from an enforcability standpoint) because people would have
no rights to distribute or create derivative works. And if they don't
do those things there isn't a compliance problem in the first place.

The GPL Is a License, not a Contract

Posted Dec 4, 2003 9:59 UTC (Thu) by dmantione (guest, #4640) [Link]

I can explain what will happen under Dutch law, but because of EU regulations and the
Benelux treaty our copyright laws are quite similair. (See
http://www.ivir.nl/wetten/nl/auteurswet.html for the text of the law.)

First, a copyright violation is a criminal act for which you can be punished with jail and
fines (article 31 and 32 and 33).

Besides this, the copyright holder is entitled to any damages he has suffered, all profits
the violator has made with his work and can claim himself owner of all illegally duplicated
material (article 27, 28 and 29).

Nothing in the law says a word about licenses. It just says you need a permission from
the copyrightholder. Dutch law does not protect contracts or licenses, it protects
agreements, and sees a contract or license as a form of proof of such an agreement.

This makes the situation no so clear. There is not much difference between a license
and a contract. It is my expectation that a judge would not accept that there is proof of
an agreement that the one would publish his own source code under GPL, however, it is
not so sure.

The GPL Is a License, not a Contract

Posted Dec 4, 2003 12:40 UTC (Thu) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

> It is my expectation that a judge would not accept that there is proof of
> an agreement that the one would publish his own source code under GPL

If I release my work under the GPL, the GPL is the *only* thing that gives you permission to redistribute my work. So if you redistribute, you are either obeying the GPL, or you are infringing my copyrights. So all I have to do is prove that you have not obeyed the GPL.

The Berne Convention makes copyright very similar in every country.

The GPL is based on an international treaty

Posted Dec 4, 2003 15:37 UTC (Thu) by hippy (guest, #1488) [Link]

If this is true, which I have no reason to doubt, it would be very useful
to have the excellent explanation of the GPL provided in this article
recast in terms of the provisions of this convention.

I am a supporter of Free and Open Source Software and often find myself
explaining the GPL and its provisions to sceptical UK business people. It
is difficult to deal with some of the questions asked because all of the
good legal descriptions are written from the perspective of US law.

It appears clear that the GPL will be enforcible by legal systems in
countries that have signed the Berne convention. However this is only part
of the picture because the nature of the penalties for violation have only
been properly explored for US law. What are the likely penalties under UK,
Belgium, Russian etc. law? In this article, the answer to the FUD of "you
will be forced to GPL your proprietary code" is covered in terms of the
provisions of the US copyright act: "There is no provision in the
Copyright Act to require distribution of infringing work on altered terms.
What copyright plaintiffs are entitled to, under the Act, are damages,
injunctions to prevent infringing distribution, and--where
appropriate--attorneys' fees." Is this true in other countries.

I am comfortable with use of the GPL in general but until it has been
tested in a UK (i.e. the one with jurisdiction over me) court I will still
be a little nervous.

Regards

Richard

PS. Thanks for a great article.

The GPL Is a License, not a Contract

Posted Dec 4, 2003 16:27 UTC (Thu) by gleef (guest, #1004) [Link]

bbencic asks
Can someone explain me if the GPL can be interpreted in the same way under the European laws (or in my case, under Belgian laws) ? Aren't there any subtle differences which allow a different interpretation of the GPL in other countries?

Questions about GPL licensing can be directed to licensing@gnu.org, it sometimes takes them a few days to respond, but I have gotten very good answers out of them. I haven't tried asking questions about the GPL under EU Laws, but they say they have looked closely at it, so I would imagine that they have many of the answers already.

Another resource you might find helpful is the Free Software Foundation Europe; they are a separate but related group focusing on encouraging Free Software in Europe, and they work very closely with the Free Software Foundation. Similarly, there is a Free Software Foundation India, focusing on India. These groups might have more detailed insights on GPL issues in their regions.