RE: GPL issues

David Schwartz
2006-04-15T18:50:01Z

> On Gwe, 2006-04-14 at 11:56 -0700, David Schwartz wrote:

> > Specifically, copyright does not protect ordinary use. If
> > you buy a CD, you
> > get the right to use that CD simply by virtue of the fact that
> > you lawfully
> > possess a lawfully made of the music on that CD.

> The rights you get automatically for "use" depend a lot on the actual
> thing itself and also the jurisdiction (local and national) and may even
> in some ludicrous cases depend on even the size of the cark park your
> building has.

There are certainly ludicrous cases, but in most of the cases you cite, the
right to ordinary use is actually superior to the restriction. In other
words, the restriction does not apply if the use is the ordinary intended
use. (Sadly, courts don't always seem to understand this.)

> To lawfully use the CD you must also not be violating the DMCA,

That the use is the ordinary, intended use of a lawfully-acquired work is
supposed to be a valid DMCA defense. That doesn't mean courts will always
see it that way or agree with you on what the ordinary use is.

> own any
> appropriate patent rights,

That's true. However, that's kind of like saying you're not entitled to
ordinary use of a bat because you can't beat someone else over the head with
it. The context was restrictions imposed by copyright, not by everything
else in the world.

> not be using it for the purpose of committing
> a crime, not using it to incite violence and on and on and on, down to
> not using it loudly enough to disturb your neighbours excessively.

Of course, but we were talking about rights to do things against rights
acquired under copyright.

> To "use" it for a public performance also generally falls under
> copyright license restrictions (performance rights).

It's very hard to know what that means in a software context. I suppose one
could theoretically argue that using Linux to run a web server that's
accessible to the public and intended for public use is a public
performance.

> What you say may have been true two hundred years ago but the IPR laws
> of the world have been growing ever more tangled and self contradictory
> since then, like a badly maintained perl script.

Fair enough. Your rant makes lots of good points about how absurd and
non-obvious the law can be and I certainly share a lot of the frustration
behind it -- *especially* about the DMCA. However, none of the cases you
mentioned affects the cases we were talking about here in any significant
way.

DS