Re: You can't get a copy unless you accept the GPL [was: Re: libkrb53 - odd license term]
Henning Makholm <henning@makholm.net>:
> If you want to *download* the sofware, then you'd better do it by the
> GPL's terms. "Downloading" implies that you are instructing some
> computer to make create a copy of the Work on your hard drive. Because
> computers, legally speaking, do not *do* anything by themselves, *you*
> are the one who are creating the copy on your hard drive. And creating
> a copy is smack in the middle of the copyright holder's legal
> monopoly.
It seems to me that the person who puts something on line is usually
regarded as the person doing the copying. I don't know of any legal
basis for this point of view, but it makes more practical sense if you
think of search engines, Usenet, other situations where copying
happens to all intents and purposes automatically once something has
been put onto a server, and in general that the person who puts
something on line has had a chance to examine and decide whether they
are allowed to do so, whereas the person who starts to download a file
has no way of knowing what they getting.
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