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Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?



Yorick Cool <yorick.cool@fundp.ac.be> wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 13, 2006 at 08:49:33PM -0500, Anthony DeRobertis wrote:
> > Climbing a 4,000 foot mountain is certainly possible. Its just
> > inconvenient [well, unless you do that kind of stuff for fun].
> > Personally, I do not find this license to be free, even though its just
> > a "convenience" issue.
> 
> Seeing as that is a void condition which is totally unenforceable[1], the
> license is just the same as if the condition were inexistent, so yeah,
> it's as good as free.
<snip>
> [1] This is at least the case in civil law countries. I have a few
> doubts about common law countries.
> 

It's almost certainly enforcable in common law countries: contracts can 
require you to do pretty much anything which isn't illegal, and licenses of 
this sort are definitely contracts (because they impose restrictions on your 
activities which would be unrestricted without acceptance of the license).  

If you use the copyrighted work (in a way which requires permission under 
copyright law) without a valid license, you are infringing copyright.  And 
the copyright holder can license the work in exchange for nearly any 
compensation he likes.  Perhaps he has a strong personal interest in 
promoting mountain climbing.  There is a doctrine of "copyright misuse", but 
it's used very rarely and appears to be very narrow.

I don't know about civil law countries, but I'd love to know why you think it 
isn't enforcable there.

-- 
Nathanael Nerode  <neroden@twcny.rr.com>

[Insert famous quote here]



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