BusyBox and the GPL Prevail Again (Groklaw)

Posted Aug 11, 2010 10:59 UTC (Wed) by etienne (guest, #25256)
In reply to: BusyBox and the GPL Prevail Again (Groklaw) by Trelane
Parent article: BusyBox and the GPL Prevail Again (Groklaw)

> > OK. But for me, Copyright violation deprives the *copyright owner* of the *value* of the thing you stole.
> It depends on what you call "value."
> Your software has the same or more of an impact on humanity if copyright law weren't restricting its copying.
> Your reputation in the world may be magnified if people copy your software willy-nilly.

If someone distribute something under the GPL license, all that the user can assumes is what is written in the license.
Maybe that copyright owner do not care about "reputation" or "impact on humanity"?
If he really did, he would probably have used another license, or a contract with strange requirements like usual commercial contracts.
What has to be "paid back" is clearly described in the GPL license, there is no point in discuting it too much - in simple terms just give back the source with your bug fixes and modifications - and the way to rebuild.
If you do not agree, either don't use it, or ask the copyright owner to use another license (maybe even for you only).

The government-provided copyright limited-time monopoly on a creation is for the society to evolve as a whole, it does not force the copyright owner to do anything more than enjoying the result of his own work.

BusyBox and the GPL Prevail Again (Groklaw)

Posted Aug 11, 2010 11:32 UTC (Wed) by Trelane (subscriber, #56877) [Link] (1 responses)

If someone distribute something under the GPL license, all that the user can assumes is what is written in the license. Maybe that copyright owner do not care about "reputation" or "impact on humanity"?

You claimed,

Copyright violation deprives the *copyright owner* of the *value* of the thing you stole.

I'm asserting that your claim depends on a number of factors, including the definition of "value". Now you're quibbling about what the definition of "value" is. You're now claiming that "value" is up to whatever the copyright holder wishes it to mean, which is ridiculous. There are categories of value, and the copyright holder may or may not care about some categories, as you've outlined. This is irrelevant to the central issue of whether or not "value" is lost, let alone whether or not copyright infringement is theft.

Your assertion is that the copyright holder is "deprived" of the "value" of the work being copied, which is possibly false, depending upon conditions which are very situation-dependent (reputation, impact on humanity) or inherently unknowable (lost money from sales at a specific price point that would have happened if copyright infringement would not have occurred).

What has to be "paid back" is clearly described in the GPL license, there is no point in discuting it too much - in simple terms just give back the source with your bug fixes and modifications - and the way to rebuild.

No. The GPL requires that you give not prevent the end user from exercising their Freedoms. The rest is technical implementation of that idea.

Still, this is orthogonal to the original dicusssion, which is whether or not copyright infringement is theft.

it does not force the copyright owner to do anything more than enjoying the result of his own work.

This is a non-sequitur. We're talking about whether or not copyright infringement is theft. Please stick to the topic at hand.

BusyBox and the GPL Prevail Again (Groklaw)

Posted Aug 11, 2010 12:19 UTC (Wed) by etienne (guest, #25256) [Link]

> I'm asserting that your claim depends on a number of factors, including the definition of "value".

I am just claiming that the value is described in the GPL: the currency to use is "source code", and the amount is "all derived work and way to reproduce".
If you want to pay in another currency like hard cash or reputation, GPL is not the license to use and you would better ask the copyright owner for another license (he/they may acccept cash as currency).
The copyright owner may very well have put his source code on the net under GPL to be able to see if someone can make money out of it (like building a TV) and wait himself for a part of this money because the GPL is unworkable to produce a TV.
That is a buisness model I would not object to - the only thing I know about GPL software is what the GPL says (and I have spent time reading it).
If you build a TV, you can ask the copyright owner to use his source code in exchange of increase of reputation like telling everybody that this guy is a genious on all TV channels - that would be another valid license.
If you refuse to accept the GPL terms and refuse to negociate anything else, and still use the source code - I just claim that is stealing (because the copyright owner work has some intrinsic value that you refuse to "pay for").