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Re: Copyright Misuse Doctrine in Apple v. Psystar


From: Hyman Rosen
Subject: Re: Copyright Misuse Doctrine in Apple v. Psystar
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 13:04:54 -0500
User-agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.19 (Windows/20081209)

amicus_curious wrote:
Well, the link resolves to downloads.verizon.net and that is most certainly a Verizon site.

You cannot know from the outside what the Verizon webserver
is doing when it processes the "actiontec gateway" URL, because
a webserver is a general purpose program which may take arbitrary
action based on the form of the URL.

Verizon does not need to make any source available at least in
> regard to the BusyBox library, and indeed does not do so, since
> the case filed by the SFLC complaining of that practice was
dismissed with predjudice.

The SFLC presumably concluded the same thing, which is why they
agreed that it was sufficient for Actiontec to make the source
code available. Since Verizon presumably does not copy firmware
onto the routers themselves, they incur no GPL obligation for
distributing the routers they have purchased from Actiontec. As
far as their firmware download URL, it would require information
from Verizon to be able to determine whether that incurs a GPL
violation, which depends on whether plain copyright law would
forbid this download. As bringers of the action, the SFLC would
have been in the best position to learn the details from Verizon,
and the seem to have concluded that Verizon does not incur such
an obligation.


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