Re: are GPLed sourceless firmwares legal to distribute ?
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org>
> On Thu, 5 Oct 2006 14:57:33 +0300, Markus Laire <malaire@gmail.com> said:
> > Hopefully (but I doubt this) someone in Debian will get sued for
> > this violation in Etch, to stop such a behaviour in the future.
>
> Nice. But the only one who can sue is the person whose
> copytright we are violating -- namely, the person who provided the
> firmware in the first place. I'll leave it up to you to determine
> the likelihood of that.
Copyright violation has criminal liability here.
I think section 107(1) and (2) in Part I of the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988 suggests that anyone in England making debian
discs for sale, or mirroring debian publicly, while knowing that it
contains infringing material is committing a *criminal* offence.
Up to six months prison for sale, and three months for mirroring,
or fines. See http://www.jenkins-ip.com/patlaw/cdpa1.htm#s107
I expect that the rest of the EU is similar, but I've not checked.
Yes, we can have the police coming through our doors over copyright
problems these days. Such is the power of Big Music and Big Movies
lobbying our lawmakers. The police and public libraries are doing
their dirty work. :-(
Please try to avoid making debian resellers criminals, and remember
IANAL and you should get your own legal advice if it matters.
Thanks,
--
MJR/slef
My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/
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