Re: Web application licenses
Brian Thomas Sniffen writes:
> I disbelieve that, without agreeing to some EULA forbidding it, I am
> forbidden by copyright law to install a computer game in a public
> place. I might be wrong, but that sounds far enough out-there that
> I'd want to see references.
17 USC 101 and Articles 4 and 8 of the WIPO Copyright Treaty probably
suffice. They definitely classify a network-provided application as
public performance -- unless you believe that executing a program does
not count as a "performance" of it, which to me sounds far out-there.
> On the other hand, I don't see how that's at all connected to the case
> in question: use of software by network service, and whether it's Free
> to require that source to such software be provided.
I believe that use of software over a network (by members of the
public) is public performance of it, and protected under copyright
law. If that is correct, the argument over what it means to access
the software over a network is moot, since "public performance" is not
defined in terms of how the user accesses the work.
People accept the GPL's boundary of copyleft (components normally
shipped with the computer); that can certainly be applied to network
servers, avoiding the argument that if the kernel and C library used
such a license you might have to distribute sources for them too.
I do not have wording that adequately balances freedom of use with
copyleft for modified network services, but neither do I have proof
that such a balance is impossible. My point in the above is to argue
that copyright law _could_ enforce that kind of balance if someone
finds one.
Michael Poole
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