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Re: Psystar's legal reply brief in response to Apple


From: Alexander Terekhov
Subject: Re: Psystar's legal reply brief in response to Apple
Date: Wed, 08 Dec 2010 15:58:40 -0000

ZnU wrote:
[...]
> Note that the appeals court, in its ruling, talks in fairly general
> terms about "public licenses" and explicitly cites "GNU/Linux" --
> complete with "GNU" -- as an example of software released under such a
> license. It explicitly raises the issue of whether releasing software
> under such public licenses preserves the right of authors to seek
> copyright remedies and lays out the case that it does.

What are the GPL "conditions" for MAKING COPIES (either verbatim or with
modifications)?

Since the GPL does not specify that title to the copies made is to be
retained by the copyright proprietor, title to the copies belongs to the
licensees who, under the 17 USC 109, is free to distribute the copies
without the authority of the copyright owner.

http://ftp.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/550/550.F2d.1180.76-1141.html

"In Wells the court granted defendant's motion for acquittal on eight
counts of criminal infringement of the copyright of aerial survey maps
owned by Edgar Tobin. Tobin had licensed 107 of his customers to
manufacture reproductions of his maps for their own use. Defendant was
charged with selling, without authorization, copies of Tobin's
copyrighted maps. The pivotal issue was whether the copies sold by the
defendant were copies which had been the subject of a first sale,
thereby terminating their statutory protection:

". . . If title has been retained by the copyright proprietor, the copy
remains under the protection of the copyright law, and infringement
proceedings may be had against all subsequent possessors of the copy who
interfere with the copyright proprietor's exclusive right to vend the
copyrighted work. If title has passed to a first purchaser, though, the
copy loses the protection of the copyright law as discussed above." 176
F.Supp. at 633-634.

The court found that "there has been no showing on the record that the
copies of the aerial survey maps were not published by a lawful licensee
of the copyright proprietor or that title to these copies was retained
at all times by the copyright proprietor". 176 F.Supp. at 633. Since the
Tobin license did not specify that title to the reproduced maps was to
remain in Tobin, title to the maps belonged to the licensees who, under
the first sale doctrine, were free to resell the maps. The court
concluded: "Lacking the protection of the copyright law, there can be no
infringement, and defendant should be acquitted." 176 F.Supp. at 634."

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.)


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