On Nov 24, 9:19 am, rjack <danw6...@insightbb.com> wrote:
Tim Smith wrote:
On 2007-11-21, rjack <danw6...@insightbb.com> wrote:
The designated donee beneficiaries of the GPL are obviously "all third
parties". Clearly the plaintiffs are "parties" to the GPL contract and
cannot be a member of the class "all third parties." Therefore the
plaintiffs can suffer no injury by the source code not being made
available to "all third parties".
Their injury is the use of the copyrighted work in a manner that they
have not agreed to.
To constitute copyright infringement an action must be capable of
violating an author's 17 USC sec. 106 exclusive rights in the absence of
any license at all.
Requiring distribution of another author's modifications in a derivative
work is not one of the exclusive rights enumerated under 17 USC sec. 106
and cannot lead to a charge of "copyright infringement".
The alleged violation of the GPL (failure to distribute another author's
modifications) is a contractual requirement that names it's designated
donee beneficiaries as "all third parties".
:)
The creation and release of derivative works is an exclusive
right of the copyright owner (barring various "fair use"
exceptions.).
The GPL is a grant of permission to do it provided certain
requirements are met, namely that all derivative works must
are licensed under the GPL. Failure to meet that requirement
renders the permission null and void, as the use is now outside
it's scope and hence restricted by default by the copyright law.