Re: Justice draws nigh

[David Kastrup]

David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org> writes:

> Hyman Rosen <hyrosen@mail.com> writes:
>
>> On 5/12/2010 4:34 PM, David Kastrup wrote:
>>> You have to have sufficient overlap.  But it would be pointless to
>>> demand registration of some "exact version" when the defendant has
>>> modified the original version. Of course the plaintiff can't register
>>> the exact version resulting from the defendant's modifications.
>>
>> I don't believe that in the cases mounted by the SFLC the
>> defendants distributed a version they themselves modified.
>
> Yes, but it is not relevant for the argument to hold.  Of course the
> court has an interest in doing no unnecessary work.  That's the point of
> demanding registration in the first place.
>
> But I should think that there is a limit to the amount of mostly
> pointless exact version detective work they can demand from plaintiffs.

As a postscriptum: of course this is _completely_ different if the
different versions have been conveyed under different licenses (if at
all).

If the licensee has a license for 0.59 and has modified it extensively,
and the plaintiff sues for illicit use of version 0.60, of _course_ he
needs to register 0.60 and demonstrate that parts of it have been used
(and not, like in the case of non-trivial bug fixes, independently
developed).

In this case it is interesting how the defendant can bolster his claim
about having used only 0.59 code when the 0.59 code has _not_ been
registered.  Possibly there is no way to enforce registration for _that_
version even though it is part of the case, but as a defense.  And one
can't ask the defendant to register this version...

-- 
David Kastrup