A discussion on combining CDDL and GPL code

Posted May 20, 2016 22:59 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (guest, #1954)
In reply to: A discussion on combining CDDL and GPL code by mjg59
Parent article: A discussion on combining CDDL and GPL code

That's a good point. The paper doesn't mention that loophole. A lot of times statutory damages are just for measuring damages while liability itself requires that there be proof of nonzero damage. But I don't know.

I can't recall ever hearing about someone suing for statutory damages for copyright violation.

A discussion on combining CDDL and GPL code

Posted May 21, 2016 18:22 UTC (Sat) by nybble41 (subscriber, #55106) [Link] (1 responses)

> I can't recall ever hearing about someone suing for statutory damages for copyright violation.

Statutory damages are basically the only kind a copyright holder *can* sue for, since there is no such thing as actual damage from making a copy, whether authorized or not. All those high-profile "piracy" cases where individuals were threatened with fines on the order of hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars for copying a handful of songs or videos were founded on statutory damages. Of course, such cases require solid evidence and generate a lot of negative PR, so more recently they've been focusing on pressuring ISPs into serving as their extra-judicial enforcement wing and "persuading" individuals to settle rather than suffer the legal expense of defending themselves.

A discussion on combining CDDL and GPL code

Posted May 22, 2016 3:08 UTC (Sun) by giraffedata (guest, #1954) [Link]

OK. That kind of copying isn't usually the kind that authors of open source code worry about, but it's certainly a valid example of statutory damages being real.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say by there being no such thing as actual damage from making a copy, but suffice it to say that people regularly win sums in court much larger than statutory damages to compensate them for the damage done to them by other people making copies.

A discussion on combining CDDL and GPL code

Posted May 22, 2016 1:13 UTC (Sun) by happylemur (subscriber, #95669) [Link] (2 responses)

This case is probably the highest-profile example of statutory damages for copyright infringement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Records,_Inc._v._Th...

A discussion on combining CDDL and GPL code

Posted May 22, 2016 3:03 UTC (Sun) by giraffedata (guest, #1954) [Link] (1 responses)

Thanks. That sort of blows a hole in the idea that if the copyright holder isn't damaged then there is no liability and makes us rely for CDDL-GPL compatibility on the hypothetical power of a court to enforce the spirit of a copyright license, expanding the permission to copy beyond what the copyright holder actually said.

A discussion on combining CDDL and GPL code

Posted May 23, 2016 11:01 UTC (Mon) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

The statutory damages risk makes for a compelling argument, indeed.

You still need to persuade a court that there has been a copyright violation though, in distributing a derivative of CDDLed and GPLed works. I think the Eblen Moglen and Mishi Choudhary paper is more examining that question, than the damages issue, if I understand correctly (also, I don't think the paper is taking the firm position on the CDDL/GPL issue that this LWN article seems to paint; if Choudhary took a firm stance in the talk, the paper does not have it). That paper makes an interesting point on literal readings: under a very literal reading, one could not combine BSD or other code considered "GPL compatible" with GPL code, without explicit relicensing to GPL.

Interesting stuff.