(OT) - Major Blow to Copyleft Theory

[Alexander Terekhov]

On 8/27/07, Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> wrote:
[...]
> Further, I didn't see Alexander Terkehov's posting, but gather that it
> concerns the California JMRI case.  Based on the above quotation,
> Terekhov has fundamentally misrepresented the case -- relying in part on
> selective quotation from Mark Radcliffe's blog.  LWN subscriber "bojan"
> seems to have the best critique:
>
> http://lwn.net/Articles/246791/

"I'm not sure how the author of the article concluded that this
licence is a contract."

says it all.

The court stated in bold that "Plaintiff's Claim Sounds in Contract,
Not Copyright."

And further elaborated "The nonexclusive license is subject to various
conditions, including the licensee's proper attribution of the source
of the subject files. However, implicit in a nonexclusive license is
the promise not to sue for copyright infringement. See In re CFLC,
Inc., 89 F.3d 673, 677 (9th Cir. 1996), citing De Forest Radio
Telephone Co. v. United States, 273 U.S. 236, 242 (1927) (finding that
a nonexclusive license is, in essence, a mere waiver of the right to
sue the licensee for infringement); see also Effects Associates, Inc.
v. Cohen, 908 F.2d 555, 558 (9th Cir. 1990) (holding that the granting
of a nonexclusive license may be oral or by conduct and a such a
license creates a waiver of the right to sue in copyright, but not the
right to sue for breach of contract)."

To armed man John Cowan: see the reference to De Forest? Let the poor
judge know that he is unarmed man. :-)

regards,
alexander.