Re: Question about the old BSD license and GPL (gtkipmsg)

["Chloe Hoffman" <chloehoffman@hotmail.com>]

This is not legal advice. No lawyer-client relationship is established. etc 
etc

> From: Raul Miller <moth@debian.org>
> To: Chloe Hoffman <chloehoffman@hotmail.com>
> CC: tb@becket.net, debian-legal@lists.debian.org
> Subject: Re: Question about the old BSD license and GPL (gtkipmsg)
> Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2001 10:36:42 -0400
>
> On Thu, Jun 21, 2001 at 08:59:52AM -0400, Chloe Hoffman wrote:
> > I fail to see the "first amendment" reasons. Violation of the First
> > Amendment to the U.S. Constitution typically requires state action.
> > To me this is a contract matter between private parties - I don't see
> > state action.
>
> Enforcement of copyright is state action, is it not?
>
> Alternatively, it might be clearer to say that copyright law is not
> designed as a mechanism for prior restraint of free speech.

If we're talking about enforcement of copyright in a court of law, then I 
would note, as summarized by Eugene Volokh 
(http://www.law.ucla.edu/faculty/volokh/copyinj.htm#IIA):

In Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. v. Nation Enterprises,91 the Supreme Court 
made clear that copyright law is substantively constitutional: the First 
Amendment does not shield speech that infringes another's copyright.92 
Copyright, the Court said, is itself an "engine of free expression" because 
it "supplies the economic incentive to create and disseminate ideas."93

> --
> Raul

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