Kuhn: A Comprehensive Analysis of the GPL Issues With the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Business Model [LWN.net]

Kuhn: A Comprehensive Analysis of the GPL Issues With the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Business Model

Posted Jul 10, 2023 11:05 UTC (Mon) by pizza (subscriber, #46)
In reply to: Kuhn: A Comprehensive Analysis of the GPL Issues With the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Business Model by Wol
Parent article: Kuhn: A Comprehensive Analysis of the GPL Issues With the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Business Model

> More than that, the GPL itself only kicks in for acts of distribution, iirc.

FYI, It also kicks in for _modification_ as well. To quote GPLv3 section 9:

"You are not required to accept this License in order to receive or run a copy of the Program. [...] However, nothing other than this License grants you permission to propagate or modify any covered work. These actions infringe copyright if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or propagating a covered work, you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so."

So you have to _accept_ the GPL's terms in order to modify something covered by it, but the GPL places no obligations/restritions on you if you never actually distribute a modified (or indeed, an unmodified) copy.

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Kuhn: A Comprehensive Analysis of the GPL Issues With the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Business Model

Posted Jul 10, 2023 12:29 UTC (Mon) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] (4 responses)

The problem here is that modifying somebody else's copyrighted code is not something you get to do, under the defaults of copyright law. You need separate permission to do this, which the GPL provides, independently of whether you plan to distribute your modifications. There is nothing in the GPL, however, which forces you to make the source to your modifications available to anyone as long as you never distribute modified binaries to a third party.

Kuhn: A Comprehensive Analysis of the GPL Issues With the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Business Model

Posted Jul 10, 2023 12:54 UTC (Mon) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (3 responses)

Debatable ...

You can modify / deface a book, and pass it on without needing the copyright holder's permission, provided you haven't actually copied the original text.

To what extent that covers running a "defaced" copy of the original program is open to argument.

But as soon as you distribute it, all that is irrelevant. Either (a) you're distributing the one (defaced) copy you received, or (b) you're making copies. In case (a) the recipient gets all the rights and responsibilities you originally had and you're left with nothing, or case (b) the GPL bites.

Cheers,
Wol

Kuhn: A Comprehensive Analysis of the GPL Issues With the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Business Model

Posted Jul 10, 2023 13:59 UTC (Mon) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] (2 responses)

The rules are different for physical objects (like books or CDs) vs. “digital content”, such as software you download. If you obtain a copy of a copyrighted work as a physical object (book, CD, USB thumb drive, …), you get to dispose of that particular object as you please (including defacing it, selling it on, etc.), but your ownership of the copy doesn't let you make copyright decisions concerning the original work (such as making and selling more copies, or commissioning a movie based on (the content of) a book). The legal doctrine is called “copyright exhaustion”.

OTOH, whether copyright exhaustion applies to digital copies of a work is unclear. For example, if you download a musical recording as an MP3 file, according to copyright law you don't get to sell that recording to someone else, because that sale would result in the creation of an extra copy (even if you later remove your own copy of the file), and the creation of extra copies remains the copyright holder's prerogative. The same reasoning would apply to “defacing” an MP3 file – this would usually result in unauthorised copies being produced, and hence not be allowed, modulo the “fair use”-type provisions that exist in certain jurisdictions. (It has been long established that, e.g., the fact that a piece of software must be copied from secondary storage into RAM in order to execute it is irrelevant as far as copyright is concerned, but that of course doesn't give you blanket permission to make extra copies in order to “deface” it.)

Kuhn: A Comprehensive Analysis of the GPL Issues With the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Business Model

Posted Jul 10, 2023 15:07 UTC (Mon) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (1 responses)

> if you download a musical recording as an MP3 file, according to copyright law you don't get to sell that recording to someone else,

I think copyright law has changed ... which is how you can buy eg OEM copies of Windows and stuff.

European law now explicitly lets you sell on digital copies, on condition you destroy your original copy. I don't know the details, but I do remember something of the sort a good few years ago.

I know MS is unhappy, but if they discover you are selling on OEM copies, all they can do is refuse to do any further business with you (that's how I've obtained most of my recent copies of Windows).

Cheers,
Wol

Kuhn: A Comprehensive Analysis of the GPL Issues With the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Business Model

Posted Jul 11, 2023 11:03 UTC (Tue) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183) [Link]

> European law now explicitly lets you sell on digital copies, on condition you destroy your original copy. I don't know the details, but I do remember something of the sort a good few years ago.

So I was thinking of writing something similar yesterday but figured I'd add sources for this claim... and came up blank. In fact, I found the opposite, namely the Tom Kabinet case before the ECJ which ruled that if you offer a site that allows people to download a copy of an e-book that that counts as distribution, even if you claim you're deleting your copy directly after the download. It doesn't help that in the EU software copyright and other copyrights are not handled the same way, see [1]

At a national level, similar cases where people selling an ebook to someone else by physically handing over media containing the ebook however have ruled the other way. Software copyright is regulated under the Software directive, and e-books under the InfoSoc directive. If you buy an MS Windows installation CD secondhand, MS cannot deny you downloading updates just because you weren't the first owner.

I think this is the reason why so many software businesses are moving over to subscription models because by offering a time-limited service, resale can simply by prohibited by contract law rather than relying on copyright law. Just like with Netflix & Spotify, since you never buy it, it can't be resold either.

[1] https://academic.oup.com/grurint/article/69/5/489/5854748