Re: Copyright Misuse Doctrine in Apple v. Psystar

[Hyman Rosen]

amicus_curious wrote:
> Even though Verizon is openly distributing a product that contains
> GPL licensed software, they do not provide the source.

If it's the routers themselves, then if Verizon buys them from
Actiontec and distributes them to customers, they do not need
to follow the GPL because of first sale. I don't have one of
these routers, so I don't know whether the router itself comes
in the box with the proper GPL notification.

If it's the firmware link, then it's not clear that Verizon is
copying the software in a way that the law would interpret
as requiring separate copyright permission - there's an
"actiontec gateway" involved, and I don't even know if it has
been settled as to which party violates copyright when a download
is requested.

> The SDLC sued Verizon originally to make this happen, but then
> offered a dismissal (with predjudice) to vacate the suit. That
> is fleeing the field, no matter what motivation you want to impute
> to the SDLC.

The way I would interpret this is that once the SFLC began dealing
with Verizon and Actiontec, they became privy to more detailed
information than they had from the outside, and decided that having
Actiontec provide the GPLed sources was sufficient.