Kuhn: Copyleft Won't Solve All Problems, Just Some of Them
Kuhn: Copyleft Won't Solve All Problems, Just Some of Them
Posted Mar 21, 2022 1:07 UTC (Mon) by Wol (subscriber, #4433)In reply to: Kuhn: Copyleft Won't Solve All Problems, Just Some of Them by rlhamil
Parent article: Kuhn: Copyleft Won't Solve All Problems, Just Some of Them
In a completely different scenario, I bought some stuff on-line, and after three attempts by me to pay them, they set their lawyers on me for the debt. I just quoted "legal tender" at them, said I had tried to pay them, and said that while I wasn't sure of the status of a credit card as "legal tender", the law was quite clear that if I offered said legal tender, their failure to accept it was *in law* an agreement by them not to take legal action. I never heard another word from them ...
Cheers,
Wol
Posted Mar 21, 2022 1:15 UTC (Mon)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link]
Cheers,
Posted Mar 21, 2022 10:06 UTC (Mon)
by farnz (subscriber, #17727)
[Link] (1 responses)
But if I implement DVD-CSS (or AACS, or other DRM scheme that has previously been deemed to be an "effective copy protection measure" by the courts) in GPLv3 code, purely for the purposes of obeying the terms of the scheme while implementing a usable media player, and then the DVD CCA or AACS LA argue in court that my implementation is "an effective protection measure", pointing at past precedent, what happens?
I simply state that I've implemented this because it's required to produce a decent optical media player for video discs. It's a third party claiming that, even though it's been implemented in GPLv3 code, it's still an effective protection measure.
FWIW, I predict that a court would take a narrow view of the GPLv3 language in this case - I can't argue that it's an effective protection measure, because I have stated in my licence terms that it is not, but that nobody else, not even someone who distributes a copy of the code under the GPLv3 licence, would be so restricted.
Posted Mar 21, 2022 16:52 UTC (Mon)
by floppus (guest, #137245)
[Link]
> a technological measure “effectively controls access to a work” if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work.
If you wrote and distributed the program without the copyright holder's authority, then the program (if it works at all) does not require the authority of the copyright holder to operate, therefore the program is not a "technological measure that effectively controls access to" that work.
The program might be deemed to "circumvent a technological measure", but it cannot *be* a technological measure, which is what the GPL is talking about.
Kuhn: Copyleft Won't Solve All Problems, Just Some of Them
Wol
Kuhn: Copyleft Won't Solve All Problems, Just Some of Them
Kuhn: Copyleft Won't Solve All Problems, Just Some of Them