Re: Why do it?

[Alexander Terekhov]

Rjack wrote:
[...]
> The patent judges of the Federal Circuit seemingly are not
> familiar with the provisions of 17 USC 301 copyright preemption.

>From comments at 

http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2008/08/open-source-lic.html

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Posted by: smashmouth football | Aug 14, 2008 at 07:17 PM 

I think that these copyleft licenses are great and all, but this
decision ought to be rubbing people the wrong way. Essentially, the
court found that breach of a contract clause (attribution) can give rise
to "copyright infringement!" The court bent over backwards to make
attribute a "condition" on the license grant, but I was left entirely
unconvinced.

The grant was purposefully broad. It does not seem that the person
breached the granting clause. They breached other provisions.

This is bad because most grants have some "catch-all" language that
states: Licensor grants to licensee a non-exclusive right to do x under
Licensor's patents [copyrights], provided licensee complies with the
terms of this agreement. Does that mean ANY violation of the contract
gives rise to an infringement? E.g. if you make ONE late payment and
you're now an infringer? Yikes!

That said, presumably a licensor can terminate the agreement for breach
and then on-going activity would be infringement. But that is simply not
what this court has done.

All around, really, not a good day for the consumers.

Posted by: mmmbeer | Aug 14, 2008 at 07:57 PM 

Do you want to hear three judges and two attorneys confused about
copyright law? Take a listen to the audio. I did, and I am just shaking
my head thinking that copyright law is not their bag.

After clicking the following link, type "08-1001" in the Case Number
block:

http://oralarguments.cafc.uscourts.gov/searchscript.asp
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He he.

regards,
alexander.

-- 
http://gng.z505.com/index.htm 
(GNG is a derecursive recursive derecursion which pwns GNU since it can 
be infinitely looped as GNGNGNGNG...NGNGNG... and can be said backwards 
too, whereas GNU cannot.)