On 04/24/2011 12:07 AM, Ken Arromdee wrote: > On Sat, 23 Apr 2011, Stefan Hirschmann wrote: >> The lawyer wants the poster to pay 700 Euro and stop uploading of Debian. >> ------------------------- >> My opion is that this behavior is not good for Debian's reputation and >> the project should take legal action against the lawyer and this company. > > It's my understanding that in Germany lawyers can do this to copyright > violators even though they are not the copyright holder. And it's very > likely > he's a copyright violator, so there's not much Debian can do. No, really. > > The GPL V2 requires that if you distribute, you either > a) accompany a binary with the source code > b) accompany it with a written offer to give everyone a copy of the source > code for three years, or > c) accompany it with an offer to distribute source code, if it's > noncommercial > distribution and you received the program inder b). > > It's very unlikely that b or c applies, and most people who torrent Linux > don't put a copy of the source code in the torrent, so a is unlikely. The > problem is that on Bittorrent, everyone who downloads also uploads. This > makes it illegal to download just a binary, since if you do that you're > also > uploading just a binary, and uploading just a binary is a form of > distribution > the GPL doesn't allow. > > Which means he's (probably) technically a copyright violator, just a > copyright > violator that everyone has agreed to ignore because the GPL V2 is unwieldy > that way. But lawyers in Germany can go after copyright violators who the > copyright holders ignore. > > The GPL V3 had to have a clause written in specifically allowing Bittorrent > (see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#BitTorrent) because of the > problems legally using it with V2. > >
As absurd as this argumentation sounds to me (but then I'm a mere engineer and find matters of law often to be very confusing), following it makes the Debian project a direct accomplice in copyright violation, see http://www.debian.org/CD/torrent-cd. By providing these torrents, the Debian project makes everybody in Germany who uses them a copyright violator. Michael -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email protected] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [email protected] Archive: http://lists.debian.org/[email protected]
