SFC v. Vizio remanded back to California state courts
SFC v. Vizio remanded back to California state courts
Posted May 16, 2022 18:14 UTC (Mon) by faramir (subscriber, #2327)In reply to: SFC v. Vizio remanded back to California state courts by Wol
Parent article: SFC v. Vizio remanded back to California state courts
Posted May 16, 2022 20:47 UTC (Mon)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link] (37 responses)
What's GREAT is that it will send a massive message "if you don't comply, you could get hit from anywhere". And compliance is so damn EASY! (At least, it is if you're half-way concerned about being legal!)
But it'll send shockwaves through the "cheap who cares if it's legal" market. And good!
I don't know about America, but even with this case being American, it'll have a big impact in Europe, and it really will scare off any European company from dodgy far-east suppliers, because like I said non-compliance will be considered wilful, and it WILL HURT.
(And then Americans will benefit because, being faced with being locked out of the European market, European compliance will lead to American compliance because, well, it's just EASIER.)
Cheers,
Posted May 16, 2022 20:58 UTC (Mon)
by k8to (guest, #15413)
[Link] (36 responses)
Posted May 16, 2022 21:06 UTC (Mon)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link]
Rather than try harder not to use it, they should (hopefully will" say to their supplier "send us a copy of the source, with instructions how to check that source is actually what's on the device".
And as for trying harder, the amount of consumer kit that now comes with "this product contains GPL software ..." is becoming impressive. Pretty much all my Panasonic AV gear for example. If the classier companies have no problem doing it, using non-BPL/BSD/FLOSS software is going to push costs up for bargain-basement companies. They're going to have comply, or be locked out of a LOT of lucrative markets ... and if they're locked out of Europe they're going to have a lot of difficulty making up volumes elsewhere ...
Cheers,
Posted May 16, 2022 21:36 UTC (Mon)
by johannbg (guest, #65743)
[Link] (23 responses)
1. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=38441...
Posted May 16, 2022 21:56 UTC (Mon)
by johannbg (guest, #65743)
[Link] (17 responses)
It's better to just drop the copyleft license rather than risking that since you end up getting sued regardless if you try to play by the book since you are a high value target.
Posted May 16, 2022 22:47 UTC (Mon)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link] (16 responses)
As a plaintiff, you've got to formally request a copy of the source, which will cost you! $100? Maybe more? "Sorry guys, we need a lawyer to copy the CD so we've got proof we sent it to you. They charge $1000/hr. It's on the website if you don't want to pay that."
Then you've got due diligence to check that the source and the product don't match. That'll cost.
And then, if the company's done its work properly, you can't sue because you'll get flattened in court.
It's not worth the candle as soon as a company shows signs of having done due diligence and is offering source. Even if the company's screwed up and isn't offering the correct source, would you risk it?
Cheers,
Posted May 16, 2022 23:45 UTC (Mon)
by johannbg (guest, #65743)
[Link] (15 responses)
Plaintiffs' lawyers use contingency fee agreements ( which is usually between 20% - 50% of plaintiffs recovery ) as in they agree to receive payment only if they win the lawsuit or get a settlement.
I'm not sure which "Big trouble in EU" you are referring to, but I'm pretty sure there exist lawyers out there willing to take that work and risk associated with it for a big pay day either as an class action lawsuit or as ( multiple ) individual ones, just as there exist company's not willing to take the risk being sued by copyleft trolls ( or SFC ) as there exist company's that are willing to take the risk of being sued by not adhering to copyleft licences.
> Then you've got due diligence to check that the source and the product don't match. That'll cost.
Or the company can simply be without that potential grenade in the form of a lawsuit and simply not use or stop using copyleft licensed material in their products and be without the headache of providing a cd or a link to an cd image on it's website or use creative commons.
Arguably going after these companies that violate the copyleft licenses does more harm than good in the broader sense. Yeah sure it might help the individual(s) that feel(s) "violated" but that's about it.
Posted May 17, 2022 7:28 UTC (Tue)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link] (14 responses)
> Plaintiffs' lawyers use contingency fee agreements ( which is usually between 20% - 50% of plaintiffs recovery ) as in they agree to receive payment only if they win the lawsuit or get a settlement.
They also do due diligence as in "are we likely to get a pay-day". Unlike in the US, they also need to do due diligence as in "will we have to pay the defendant's costs". The down-side is a LOT bigger.
> I'm not sure which "Big trouble in EU" you are referring to, but I'm pretty sure there exist lawyers out there willing to take that work and risk associated with it for a big pay day either as an class action lawsuit or as ( multiple ) individual ones, just as there exist company's not willing to take the risk being sued by copyleft trolls ( or SFC ) as there exist company's that are willing to take the risk of being sued by not adhering to copyleft licences.
I'm sure there are lawyers like that. But firstly, do class action lawsuits even exist in Europe? They never used to, although I think I've heard something about them recently. And secondly, pick the wrong target who fights back, and your career is on the line! If your target did do due diligence you could be looking at career-limiting bankruptcy.
I'm looking at the economics. It looks like the big guys (Panasonic, Sony et al) already have their ducks lined up. The little guys will have to line them up too, otherwise they will get squeezed out of existence. They will have to do due diligence to make sure their software is legal - which is cheaper, due diligence plus licence fees to make sure it's licenced, or due diligence plus FLOSS to make sure it's legal?
Contracts plus "an assurance it's legal" won't cut it ...
Cheers,
Posted May 17, 2022 8:05 UTC (Tue)
by amacater (subscriber, #790)
[Link]
Good software hygiene means you can keep using your software - maybe _that's_ the lesson of providing sources and it's for developers to get used to specifying build details and reproducibility. Reproducible builds are among the best things from the last ten years in my humble opinion.
Posted May 17, 2022 13:43 UTC (Tue)
by kleptog (subscriber, #1183)
[Link] (12 responses)
That's not the biggest problem though. In Europe punitive damages for these kinds of cases is not really a thing. So even if you had some kind of class action, you'd end up getting compensation for actual damages, whatever they are. None of this "millions of dollars for an overheated cup of coffee" effect.
Although copyright is kinda special (what are the damages for not getting the source? The costs of reverse engineering it? Or just the cost of an equivalent replacement) and this is a broad generalisation. When talking about 30+ wildly different legal systems it's hard to make any generalisations.
Posted May 17, 2022 14:55 UTC (Tue)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link] (1 responses)
Sadly, that "overheated cup of coffee" slur is unwarranted. Dig into the facts, and it turns out it was a *deliberate* Health & Safety breach, and the company involved had been repeatedly warned. The jury awarded the big dollars - the plaintiff merely sued for costs for her THIRD degree burns. *THAT* company deserved absolutely everything they got slammed for - there's a good chance the people involved would have got a jail sentence in Europe, if the restaurant hadn't been shut down first.
And no, punitive damages aren't a thing in Europe. But it places the company on notice, and the penalties for scofflaws in Europe ramp up. Doesn't mean judges will apply them, but upper limits on fines tend only to apply for the first one or two offences ... Plus "copyright piracy for gain" tends to be a criminal offence - not a wise move to do it as a business.
Cheers,
Posted May 21, 2022 16:48 UTC (Sat)
by bkuhn (subscriber, #58642)
[Link]
> *THAT* company deserved absolutely everything they got slammed for - there's a good chance the people involved would have got a jail sentence in Europe, if the restaurant hadn't been shut down first.
I agree. Most people don't know that they found in discovery that the company had sent memos to franchisees to tell them that the coffee temperatures they were using were dangerous.
It's unfortunate that in the USA we don't have the comparatively excellent regulatory environment found in Europe for issues like this, but tort is part of our legal system designed to assure citizens and small organizations can seek justice against the powerful and wealthy.
If folks are wondering about the case they're talking about, I recommend the documentary "Hot Coffee": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Coffee_(film)
Karen and I discussed on an episode of FaiF: http://faif.us/cast/2011/jul/05/0x13/
Posted May 17, 2022 17:54 UTC (Tue)
by johannbg (guest, #65743)
[Link] (3 responses)
Atleast this [2] seems to be pretty clear on that, with article 5 to be of particular interest and article 8a of the directive supporting what Wol said about the losing party having to pay the successful party's costs of the proceedings.
If this was approved at that time, all member states of EU should have implemented it by now into their national law.
1. https://ec.europa.eu/growth/tools-databases/vto/policy/ne...
Posted May 17, 2022 21:00 UTC (Tue)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link] (2 responses)
Haven't read it, but I would hope they've also taken a leaf out of the UK's rules on paying the opposing party's costs. It's not unheard of for people to WIN cases, and be landed with the other party's costs.
It's not good news for people who want justice rather than money, but if you're ever sued in the UK, the FIRST thing you should do is make a reasonable offer for settlement. If the other party doesn't accept, then they're gambling on winning big in court. Geoffrey Archer found that out the hard way.
He sued a newspaper for libel. The paper offered to settle for about £150K. Geoffrey turned it down. When it went to trial the jury returned a verdict that the newspaper had unfairly maligned his reputation, but also that he had no reputation to lose, so he won - iirc - 1*p* in damages. Which gave the losing defendant a pretty much automatic award of costs. Geoffrey went bankrupt paying BOTH sides of the court costs.
Cheers,
Posted May 17, 2022 22:56 UTC (Tue)
by farnz (subscriber, #17727)
[Link]
It's worth noting on the "justice" count that civil courts in the UK are not about justice; only the criminal courts form part of the justice system, and if you want "justice", that's where you need to be.
In the civil system, the court is not ruling on rights or wrongs; it is aiming to find a fair settlement to the case, usually in terms of money (but sometimes with "specific performance" included). The goal of the part 36 rules is to avoid wasting the court's time when a fair settlement offer has been made, by encouraging you to take the fair offer because it's at least as good as you'd get from the court.
Posted May 17, 2022 23:43 UTC (Tue)
by excors (subscriber, #95769)
[Link]
I feel it would often be helpful if you could spend a few minutes Googling your facts to check they're not entirely wrong before spreading them.
Posted May 17, 2022 22:40 UTC (Tue)
by nybble41 (subscriber, #55106)
[Link]
It's unfortunate that the US fails to recognize that this is a violation. Class-action suits should *always* be opt-in.
Not only should you have the legal right to represent yourself (without going out of your way to opt out of the class action, which is usually quite inconvenient), but morally you also have the right to decide that you haven't been wronged in the first place and that the subject of the class action ought not to be punished on your behalf.
The inconvenience of opting out is its own separate problem. I may have seen one case where I could opt out with an online form. The rest required some variation on printing out a form, filling it out by hand, and mailing it (sometimes by certified mail only) at my own expense. In a few cases they didn't even provide the template; one was expected to write up a free-form letter containing certain data and simply hope that it met their requirements. Naturally no feedback is given as to the result. People talk about modern "dark patterns" in apps and web sites, but the class-action legal industry clearly mastered the art long ago.
Posted May 18, 2022 8:18 UTC (Wed)
by marcH (subscriber, #57642)
[Link] (4 responses)
"They" invented it, then arbitration killed it. People don't realize because they click "I agree" without reading but mandatory arbitration is now absolutely everywhere. I bet even businesses like Starbucks sneak one in their loyalty card.
Posted May 18, 2022 8:31 UTC (Wed)
by marcH (subscriber, #57642)
[Link]
I was trying to make a joke, as in "hahaha, mandatory arbitration to buy a coffee, lol".
Second paragraph of https://www.starbucks.com/rewards/terms/
> These Terms of Use include an arbitration provision that governs any disputes between you and us. This provision will: - eliminate your right to a trial by jury; and ...
Same second paragraph in https://www.starbucks.com/terms/manage-gift-cards/
I have admittedly not checked whether these terms apply even when you merely buy coffee without using your card.
Posted May 19, 2022 17:05 UTC (Thu)
by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325)
[Link] (2 responses)
* This is because of a contractual provision, which is/was standard because its inclusion originally persuaded the Supreme Court that arbitration clauses were not unconscionable. In theory, they could try writing an arbitration clause where the consumer pays part or all of the arbitration fees, but it's not clear whether the courts would uphold such a contract.
Posted May 19, 2022 19:22 UTC (Thu)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link] (1 responses)
Cheers,
Posted May 19, 2022 21:14 UTC (Thu)
by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325)
[Link]
Posted May 17, 2022 7:23 UTC (Tue)
by seyman (subscriber, #1172)
[Link] (4 responses)
These companies will end up having to write their own code, which will probably be of lower quality than the copyleft code they could use.
Posted May 17, 2022 7:37 UTC (Tue)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link] (3 responses)
Posted May 18, 2022 4:42 UTC (Wed)
by k8to (guest, #15413)
[Link]
I've just talked to various business people who get to say no and rarely do their roles have holistic views. They are just practicing CYA in a legal context.
Google is a bit of a weird case. They have an institutional belief that replacing code entirely every 4-6 years is the best way to operate. It's kind of diametrically opposed to my way of thinking about the world (cautious, informed change), so I'm very ill equipped to evaluate it. But I was not really expecting a sea change level success out of fuchsia.
Posted May 18, 2022 8:21 UTC (Wed)
by marcH (subscriber, #57642)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted May 18, 2022 8:47 UTC (Wed)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link]
Posted May 17, 2022 6:08 UTC (Tue)
by marcH (subscriber, #57642)
[Link] (4 responses)
- _When_ there is an alternative then yes, absolutely. Non-copyleft has already been a preference for some time anyway in many companies. Will things change that much?
- On other hand, when there is no alternative then this will help "professional" companies who make an effort to do the right thing and who know how to produce a proper Bills of Materials which is a legal requirement for many other licenses than the GPL anyway and which is also becoming a regulatory requirement for national security reasons. Enough already with "low-cost" software and USB sticks thrown over the wall, it's not the 80s anymore.
Posted May 17, 2022 21:07 UTC (Tue)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link] (3 responses)
Copyleft *should* be preferred by user companies, because it's *user* friendly.
The question companies should be asking is "am I developer, or user?", and make the decision based on that. Hardware makers are users.
Cheers,
Posted May 18, 2022 4:44 UTC (Wed)
by k8to (guest, #15413)
[Link]
Posted May 18, 2022 6:18 UTC (Wed)
by eduperez (guest, #11232)
[Link] (1 responses)
As a professional developer, I could not disagree more... nothing is more infuriating that having to use buggy closed-source libraries or utilities to develop your product; perhaps you meant that "non-copyleft is preferred by software companies, because it's *company* friendly"?
Posted May 18, 2022 6:25 UTC (Wed)
by marcH (subscriber, #57642)
[Link]
Posted May 17, 2022 7:12 UTC (Tue)
by edeloget (subscriber, #88392)
[Link] (1 responses)
You're not going to bypass copyleft code if this means that you'll have to build your own non-copyleft distribution (which usually mean you'll have to recode the (probably) already existing linux drivers for a non-copyleft or even non-free OS). That may cost you too much time.
Posted May 17, 2022 19:09 UTC (Tue)
by pbonzini (subscriber, #60935)
[Link]
Posted May 17, 2022 11:04 UTC (Tue)
by farnz (subscriber, #17727)
[Link]
But then they have a costs problem to balance against compliance costs. The current tendency to use copyleft code and violate the licence has come about because to reach merchantable quality, it's cheaper to use copyleft code than to use permissive licensed code or write or license proprietary code.
This case potentially rearranges the balance - it becomes a case of "which is cheaper: complying with copyleft licensing, or finding an alternative of merchantable quality?" And the downside is that with the time that Linux and licensing violations have dominated the market, many alternatives have simply disappeared - Windows CE, for example.
Posted May 17, 2022 14:30 UTC (Tue)
by eduperez (guest, #11232)
[Link] (1 responses)
But, is that is a bad thing...? Is there any benefit (for the open-source community in general) when a company incorporates OSS into one of their products, but does not comply with the license?
Posted May 18, 2022 2:28 UTC (Wed)
by pabs (subscriber, #43278)
[Link]
Posted May 18, 2022 8:09 UTC (Wed)
by LtWorf (subscriber, #124958)
[Link]
Anyway companies hate copyleft and are always ready to promote using MIT license as "simpler" and "better for wider adoption", forgetting the "you won't get any benefit" part.
Posted May 16, 2022 20:56 UTC (Mon)
by ballombe (subscriber, #9523)
[Link] (1 responses)
It is not the first one, there have been a similar case in France:
Posted May 17, 2022 10:43 UTC (Tue)
by khim (subscriber, #9252)
[Link]
France doesn't have Common Law (or maybe I'm mistaken?) thus precedent is of much lesser importance. Thus yes, it's very important precedent. While I'm not sure this would make Copyleft popular again it have a chance of making it useful. Because in a today's where all these cheap gadgets either don't offer source or ensure you get it when it's no longer useful just make copyleft painful (for the ones who actually obey the license) and useless (end-user doesn't get the sources needed to fix that damn printer), anyway (if he gets sources after prolonged multi-year battle when said printer is rotting in a landfill it's not much of use). If SFC will win it would become painful yet usefull… much, much better combo no matter how you look on it.
SFC v. Vizio remanded back to California state courts
Wol
SFC v. Vizio remanded back to California state courts
SFC v. Vizio remanded back to California state courts
Wol
SFC v. Vizio remanded back to California state courts
SFC v. Vizio remanded back to California state courts
SFC v. Vizio remanded back to California state courts
Wol
SFC v. Vizio remanded back to California state courts
> And then, if the company's done its work properly, you can't sue because you'll get flattened in court.
SFC v. Vizio remanded back to California state courts
Wol
SFC v. Vizio remanded back to California state courts
SFC v. Vizio remanded back to California state courts
SFC v. Vizio remanded back to California state courts
Wol
SFC v. Vizio remanded back to California state courts
SFC v. Vizio remanded back to California state courts
More like not a thing yet since afaikt ( not an lawyer ) creating a collective representative action at the European level that came out of EU's 2018 "New Deal for Consumers" [1] enabled class action lawsuits.
2. https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-9223-202...
SFC v. Vizio remanded back to California state courts
Wol
SFC v. Vizio remanded back to California state courts
SFC v. Vizio remanded back to California state courts
SFC v. Vizio remanded back to California state courts
SFC v. Vizio remanded back to California state courts
SFC v. Vizio remanded back to California state courts
SFC v. Vizio remanded back to California state courts
SFC v. Vizio remanded back to California state courts
Wol
SFC v. Vizio remanded back to California state courts
SFC v. Vizio remanded back to California state courts
I don't see this being an attractive prospect, either for them or their customers.
SFC v. Vizio remanded back to California state courts
SFC v. Vizio remanded back to California state courts
SFC v. Vizio remanded back to California state courts
SFC v. Vizio remanded back to California state courts
SFC v. Vizio remanded back to California state courts
SFC v. Vizio remanded back to California state courts
Wol
SFC v. Vizio remanded back to California state courts
SFC v. Vizio remanded back to California state courts
SFC v. Vizio remanded back to California state courts
SFC v. Vizio remanded back to California state courts
SFC v. Vizio remanded back to California state courts
SFC v. Vizio remanded back to California state courts
SFC v. Vizio remanded back to California state courts
SFC v. Vizio remanded back to California state courts
SFC v. Vizio remanded back to California state courts
SFC v. Vizio remanded back to California state courts
<https://lwn.net/Articles/353923/>
SFC v. Vizio remanded back to California state courts