The GPL Is a License, not a Contract

The GPL Is a License, not a Contract

Posted Dec 4, 2003 9:59 UTC (Thu) by dmantione (guest, #4640)
In reply to: The GPL Is a License, not a Contract by bbencic
Parent article: The GPL Is a License, not a Contract

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.

---

(Log in to post comments)