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From: | rjack |
Subject: | Re: GPLv3 comedy unfolding -- Landley: "Not Going There (tm)" (re 'license' vs 'contract') |
Date: | Sat, 16 Jun 2007 12:59:42 -0500 |
User-agent: | Thunderbird 2.0.0.4 (Windows/20070604) |
Alexander Terekhov wrote:
Rob Landley wrote:
Er, copyright law is federal, contract law is generally state level? So not only does contract law vary a lot more by jurisdiction, but it's enforced by different courts than suits over copyright? (You'll notice the GPL doesn't say which state law holds sway. If it was a contract this would be kind of important.)
All copyright license are contracts under US law: "If a breach of contract (and a copyright license is just a type of contract)..."; In Re Aimster Copyright Litigation, 334 F.3d 643,(7th Cir. 2003). A copyright license contains a "grant of rights" that determines the "scope of permitted use" of the copyrighted material. *Only* if you exceed the scope of permitted use are you liable for *copyright infringement*. If you violate terms in the copyright license that do not determine the scope of use then you are are liable for *breach of contract*. "[W]e agree with Microsoft that the issue turns upon whether the terms Microsoft allegedly breached were limitations on the scope of the license, which would mean that Microsoft had infringed the copyright by acting outside the scope of the license; or whether the terms were merely separate contractual covenants, which wouldmake this a contract dispute..."; Sun Microsystems v. Microsoft (9th Cir. 1999). http://touchngo.com/lglcntr/spclint/sunvmsoft.htm Separating the scope limiting terms from other terms in the contract can be an enormous pain that is fraught legal pitfalls in a poorly drafted copyright license. A scope limiting term is generally defined as a term that would violate copyrights in the absence of any license at all. rjack
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