The Copyright Act preempts the GPL

[jcowan at reutershealth.com]

Peterson, Scott K (HP Legal) scripsit:

> - rights that are enumerated in the Bill of Rights, such as relating to
> free speech;

Well, very good.  Let's take "free speech" and plug it into your
explication of affirmative rights:

> > If, when impeded in some way from undertaking one of the actions 
> > constituting free speech, a speaker could go to
> > court and use the free speech rights to overcome the impediment - that 
> > would be an exercise of an affirmative right.

But you cannot go to court and overcome the impediment that prevents you
(to be maximally cliche-ridden) from shouting "Fire" in a crowded theatre.

So it might be that you call a right "affirmative" if in *some*
circumstances you can get a court to overcome a hindrance from
exercising them.  But then consider this hypo:  Alice gets an T.R.O. (a
"hindrance" par excellence) to prevent Bob from making copies of the
book _Cryptography for Idiots_.  Bob goes to court and proves that by
a transfer of copyright ownership, he is the copyright owner of _CfI_
and therefore has the right under Section 106 (a) to reproduce the
copyrighted work.  Surely this right is affirmative?

-- 
John Cowan        http://www.ccil.org/~cowan          jcowan at reutershealth.com
Please leave your values                Check your assumptions.  In fact,
   at the front desk.                      check your assumptions at the door.
     --sign in Paris hotel                   --Cordelia Vorkosigan
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