Re: GNU licenses

[Merijn de Weerd]

On Mon,  4 Sep 2006 13:19:19 +0200 (CEST), "Alfred M. Szmidt"
<ams@gnu.org> said:
>    Doing a licensed act but failing to comply with conditions is
>    *breach of contract* If I authorize you to copy in return for
>    payment of $1 per copy, and you don't pay, you are in breach of the
>    license.  Yet I can only sue you for non-performance and demand the
>    dollar per copy.
> 
> The act of `not paying $1 per copy' wasn't licensed, so this is
> copyright infringement (even according to your own words).

The "not paying $1 per copy" is not part of the authorized act. The
contract establishes two acts:
1) One party authorizes the other party to copy
2) The other party accepts the obligation to pay for each copy

The act 1) is the license. The performance of act 2) does not affect the
validity of act 1). The licensor would first have to revoke the
contract, which he can do because of non-performance of the payment
obligation by the licensee. But this is *not automatic* and until he
does this *the license is valid*.

Merijn