Hyman Rosen wrote:
Rjack wrote:
How many times do you have to be told that the Copyright Act
does not grant an *EXCLUSIVE RIGHT* to control the distribution
of a derivative work "as a whole"?
The copyright acts grants the exclusive right to authorize the
copying and distribution of a specific work. Inherent in that
exclusive right is the right to control the details of that
authorization, exemplified by book authors selling hardcover and
paperback publication rights to separate publishers.
The GPL is not asserting control over distributing the combined
or derivative work as a whole. It simply says that if you wish to
copy and distribute the covered work as part of a combined or
derivative work, you may do this only if you distribute the work
as a whole under the GPL.
That's fine. . . if it's in the privity of contract. Attempting
to bind all third parties under the GPL provisions is against public
policy (unenforceable).
If you can't or won't do that, you have no permission to include
the GPLed work in the combined work. Nothing forces the copyright
holder of the GPLed work to grant such permission, and copyright
law forbids copying and distributing the GPLed work as part of a
combined work absent that permission.
Just because contractual agreements are voluntary doesn't make
any illegal terms in those agreements enforceable.
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