Kuhn: Copyleft Won't Solve All Problems, Just Some of Them

Posted Mar 20, 2022 19:26 UTC (Sun) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325)
In reply to: Kuhn: Copyleft Won't Solve All Problems, Just Some of Them by mjg59
Parent article: Kuhn: Copyleft Won't Solve All Problems, Just Some of Them

Well, that's not your problem. The license requires *you* to refrain from trying to enforce those laws. It also instructs courts that the software should not be interpreted as an effective technological measure, but the court may or may not decide that this clause is effective. If the court says that this section is unenforceable, then it would probably get severed from the rest of the license.

Kuhn: Copyleft Won't Solve All Problems, Just Some of Them

Posted Mar 20, 2022 19:58 UTC (Sun) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (3 responses)

The text is "No covered work shall be deemed part of an effective technological measure under any applicable law". But if the technology in question has already been deemed part of an effective technological measure (eg, CSS), how do I satisfy this?

Kuhn: Copyleft Won't Solve All Problems, Just Some of Them

Posted Mar 21, 2022 1:24 UTC (Mon) by mjw (subscriber, #16740) [Link] (2 responses)

I am not a native English speaker and I am not a legal expert. But my interpretation, based on the next paragraph, is that someone who is Conveying copies of the work isn't able to claim that the covered work is deemed an effective technological measure. Preventing you from restricting the users right by waive any legal power to forbid circumvention of technological measures.

So it doesn't restrict you from writing and distributing any covered code that others might deem an effective technological measure. It just says that you cannot use that to claim the same and use such laws to restrict the users rights.

Kuhn: Copyleft Won't Solve All Problems, Just Some of Them

Posted Mar 21, 2022 1:44 UTC (Mon) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (1 responses)

I agree with your analysis of the second paragraph, but using it to interpret the first paragraph seems to render the first paragraph redundant, so I'm not convinced that's the correct interpretation of the section overall.

Kuhn: Copyleft Won't Solve All Problems, Just Some of Them

Posted Mar 22, 2022 4:52 UTC (Tue) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325) [Link]

It is intended as an admonition to courts, if for example someone gets charged with criminal copyright infringement for trying to circumvent your GPL'd DRM. You're not a party to that case, and arguably the license doesn't have any direct application as a result, but the defendant can use this clause to show that your intent was not to effectively control access to the copyrighted work, and therefore it doesn't count as DRM within the definition in the statute.

Whether a court buys that argument is another matter, of course.