[LINK] SMH: Even free software has copyrights: judge

[Eric Scheid]

A bit of a muddled news story

<http://www.smh.com.au/news/biztech/even-free-software-has-copyrights-judge/
2008/08/15/1218307187197.html>

it made more sense reading about it on Lessig:

> In non-technical terms, the Court has held that free licenses such as the CC
> licenses set conditions (rather than covenants) on the use of copyrighted
> work. When you violate the condition, the license disappears, meaning you're
> simply a copyright infringer. This is the theory of the GPL and all CC
> licenses. Put precisely, whether or not they are also contracts, they are
> copyright licenses which expire if you fail to abide by the terms of the
> license.

> http://lessig.org/blog/2008/08/huge_and_important_news_free_l.html

The underlying principle (breach of contract --> loss of license to copy -->
copyright infringement) was also recently argued in a commercial context
(Blizzard Inc vs Glider) but without quite so much applause (understandably
so - other troubling issues were in play, and the free license crowd were
not involved).


e.


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Oz-IA/2008
Australia's Conference for Information Architecture on the web
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