Friday, August 15, 2003|
SCO vs. GPL: Luminaries Decry Legal Maneuver as "Posturing" "The idea that the GPL is contrary to copyright law is, to put it plainly, nonsense," says Eben Moglen, professor of law at Columbia University and general counsel of the Free Software Foundation. "The GPL is a simple form of copyright permission, entirely within the scope of the powers exclusively reserved to the copyright holder under the Act. Despite its unusual social consequences, the GPL is legally about as straightforward and uncontroversial an instrument as can be. Challenging it as 'contrary to copyright law' will fail, regardless of the degree of noise made." [Linux Today] 9:01:54 PM  comment []
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SCO Attorney Declares GPL Invalid
from the look-at-the-silly-monkey dept. chrullrich writes "According to heise (German, fishbait), SCO's chief counsel Mark Heise (unrelated) of Boies, Schiller and Flexner has declared that the GPL violates the US copyright law and is thus null and void. SCO's legal position is actually a little too crazy to believe: The GPL allows unlimited copies, the copyright law allows one. Therefore, the GPL is invalid. Apparently, they try to argue that the copyright law, in giving consumers the right to make one backup of their software without any permission from the copyright holder, outlaws any contractual agreement that allows users to make more than one copy." There's an Inquirer article in English. Apparently SCO is now using the Chewbacca Defense. Other SCO news: SCO reports a profit, examining SCO's contributions to Linux, an attorney summarizes the case. [Slashdot] The logic is a bit twisted here. The Copyright Act is designed to protect the rights of the creator of a work. It gives all of the rights in a work to the creator. Then it outlines a base level of rights that are specifically protected and it lays out certain things that consumers may do that would not infringe on those rights. The bit about making a single copy for backup is there to provide creators and consumers with a baseline. Creators of software cannot prevent you from making a backup copy. However, there is nothing that prevents the creator (and holder of the complete bundle of copyrights) from granting consumers the right to make more copies, or give or sell copies. The real disturbing part is that this argument apparently came from one of SCO's lawyers. If this guy where my lawyer, I'd be looking for compotent representation elsewhere. IBM will eat this up and any Federal court that has ever heard a copyright case will ignore this argument. The bottom line on copyright is this: if I create it, I own it, and all of the rights in it, even if I don't register it. Registering it provides me with access to Federal court. I can do whatever I want with my creation, including give it away to people I don't know without charging for it. The GPL may have its flaws, but violating US Copyright ain't one of them. 12:34:04 PM comment []
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SCO Attorney Declares GPL Invalid
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SCO Q3 Unix revenue down 16.8%; overall revenue up 23%. New Unix licensing fees for Linux are bolstering the company's bottom line, but revenue from sales of its Unix operating systems is down 16.8% from a year ago. [Computerworld News] Sure UNIX sales revenue is down because UNIX is essentially dead. I wonder how they book license fees from companies threatened with law suits unless thye pay up on an unsubstantiated claim with a straight face? Whatever, as long as the stock price keeps riding up. 8:33:08 AM comment []
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SCO's McBride: IT world backs SCO in its fight with IBM. Darl McBride, CEO of The SCO Group, said today he thinks that the "silent majority" is on SCO's side. [Computerworld News]
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Last update: 9/2/2003; 11:13:56 AM .
