On Fri, Oct 20, 2006 at 02:10:37PM +0200, Arnoud Engelfriet wrote: > MJ Ray wrote: > > While fairly simple, it is totally incorrect, as public distribution in > > breach of copyright carries criminal liability in England, as I previously > > posted. See the Copyright Designs and Patents Act as amended, under > > the criminal liability heading. http://www.jenkins-ip.com/patlaw/cdpa1.htm > > I suspect most of the EU has similar law these days, although I cannot > > name them. > > You're correct, there is criminal liability in most of Europe > for "intentional infringement" of copyright. Many countries do > however require the copyright holder to file charges against > the infringer first. The police won't act by itself (how could > they, they have no evidence of an illegal act unless the > copyright holder files the accusation of distribution without > a license). > > I do wonder, are the copyright holders of the firmware the only > people with standing to sue? If the combination of firmware and > GPL-licensed kernel is a derivative of the kernel, then anyone > with a copyright interest in the kernel can sue for not obeying > the GPL.
Please check past debian-legal discussion about this. IANAL and everything, but all times we discussed the issue the opinion that prevaled, was that the firmware do not constitute a derivative work of the kernel, in the same way that if the firmware is contained in a flash on the card, it does not constitute a derivative work of the kernel, and in the same way a free compressor which can generate compressed archive with builtin uncompressor binaries, is not a derivative work of the compressed files it contains. More arguments on this can be found in the list archive. Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
