On 3/17/06, olive <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: [...] > try to have a court declaring the GPL illegal which would maybe make GPL > documents unredistribuable.
Uhmm, if you mean Wallace... -------- The GPL is an egregious and pernicious misuse of copyright that rises to the level of an antitrust violation. The GPL requires control of all licensees' software patent rights as well as source code copyrights: "Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all."; GPL Preamble; [emphasis added ] (see also the GPL sec. 7 ). The preceding quotation clearly expresses the anti-competitive nature of the GPL contract. Judge Richard Posner of the Seventh Circuit has recognized the potential for copyright misuse to rise to the level of an antitrust violation: "The doctrine of misuse "prevents copyright holders from leveraging their limited monopoly to allow them control of areas outside the monopoly." A&M Records, Inc. v.Napster, Inc., 239 F.3d 1004, 1026-27 (9th Cir. 2001); see Alcatel USA, Inc. v. DGI Technologies, Inc., 166 F.3d 772, 792-95 (5th Cir. 1999); Practice Management Information Corp. v. American Medical Ass'n, 121 F.3d 516, 520-21 (1997), amended, 133 F.3d 1140 (9th Cir. 1998); DSC Communications Corp. v. DGI Technologies, Inc., 81 F.3d 597, 601-02 (5th Cir.1996); Lasercomb America, Inc. v. Reynolds, 911 F.2d 970, 976-79 (4th Cir. 1990)."; ASSESSMENT TECHNOLOGIES OF WI, LLC v. WIREDATA, INC., 350 F.3d 640 (7th. Cir. 2003). " ------- If copyleft constitutes copyright misuse (note that it doesn't even have to raise to the level of an antitrust violation), then abuser's copyrights in the GPL'd works are unenforceable until the misuse is purged (i.e. forever in the case of the GPL'd works flying all over the net -- you just can't "withdraw" publicly available GPL'd stuff), As a result, anyone could infringe the copyrights in the GPL'd works with impunity. At least in US. regards, alexander.
