[License-discuss] Companies that encourage license violations

[Lawrence Rosen]

John Cowan wrote about the word "forever" [1]:

> In my non-lawyer opinion, the irrevocability clause of GPL3 hasn't got a
leg to stand on.  If I put up a sign on my land saying PUBLIC ACCESS
PERMITTED and then take it down before prescription kicks in, the fact that
the sign also said THIS SIGN WILL NOT BE TAKEN DOWN doesn't seem to help
someone I sue for trespass, except through the exceedingly dodgy mechanism
of equitable estoppel (or quasi-contract in Roman lands).

Doubtless if they were actually in transit when I revoked the permission....

 

Bending the words to suit my fancy, a GPL program intentionally posted by
its author somewhere on the web and freely copied by others is thereafter
"in transit."   I don't see how any author can successfully revoke a valid
GPL license for existing copies that she already placed in the wild.

 

Again you've sent me into litigation fantasies.... When is this ever a
problem?

 

/Larry

 

[1] Forever = "Single term of life plus 70 years (but if work is made for
hire or anonymous or pseudonymous, 95 years from the date of publication or
120 years from date of creation, whichever ends first)."
https://copyright.cornell.edu/resources/publicdomain.cfm 

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: John Cowan [mailto:cowan at mercury.ccil.org] 
Sent: Sunday, September 6, 2015 10:04 AM
To: lrosen at rosenlaw.com; license-discuss at opensource.org
Subject: Re: [License-discuss] Companies that encourage license violations

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