Re: MTL license
As well, the fact that is is framed as a "license agreement" invokes
contract law instead of pure copyright... in the U.S., contract law is
different in every state and some even have gap-filling measures
which, in a court of law, would add things to the license that even
the licensor didn't intend (choice of venue changes this, but choice
of venue provisions are about as non-free as it gets).
Joe
On 13 Sep 2004 09:22:47 -0400, Michael Poole <mdpoole@troilus.org> wrote:
> Raul Miller writes:
>
> > On Mon, Sep 13, 2004 at 02:49:01AM -0400, Glenn Maynard wrote:
> > > This is choice of venue; it means that, if the licensor wants, he can
> > > force me to trek out to Indiana at whim to defend myself in court,
> > > overriding the normal legal mechanisms for choosing a suitable venue.
> > > I believe most of d-legal considers this to be non-free; I agree.
> >
> > Of course, it also means that if Microsoft uses a derivative of this in
> > some proprietary component of Windows that the licensor can avoid having
> > to trek out to Seattle to contest the issue.
> >
> > [Personally, I'm more ambivalent about this being a non-free issue
> > than you.]
>
> At least in the case of Microsoft, this is not true. Since Microsoft
> does business in every state of the USA and many foreign countries, it
> is subject to personal jurisdiction in their local courts. Venue is
> satisfied by having an aggrieved party live there or by the alleged
> infringement taking place there (other things can probably satisfy the
> requirements for proper venue).
>
> Choice-of-venue, as opposed to choice-of-law, mostly makes it easier
> to sue small people.
>
> Michael Poole
>
>
>
>
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--
Joseph Lorenzo Hall
UC Berkeley, SIMS PhD Student
http://pobox.com/~joehall/
blog: http://pobox.com/~joehall/nqb2/
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