The Copyright Act preempts the GPL

[Ryan Ismert]

Daniel and Russell,

I've been following this discussion with a great deal of interest, and because 
I'm fairly inexperienced in the topic at hand, I hope that one or both of you 
will clarify something for me...

On Wednesday 28 January 2004 03:44 am, daniel wallace wrote:
> >  It does not. The GPL imposes a condition on anyone who wishes to
> >  make a derivative work, viz. that the derivative work, if distributed
> >  at all, be distributed under the conditions of the GPL and no
> >  others.
>
> When you impose a "condition" on another person's exclusive legal
> rights you are asking that person to wave a legal right. After all,
> the right is "exclusive" and no one may impose a condition without
> that person's concious agreement to waive that right.

It seems to me that what Russell is suggesting (or what one could suggest, 
even if Russell is not) is that the condition being imposed is not in fact a 
condition on an exclusive right -- the distribution of a derivative work--, 
as Daniel holds, but rather a condition on the permission to create 
derivative works in the first place.

Am I correctly identifying the issue at stake here?  Is the distinction valid, 
or are the two conditions identical?  If they are not identical, how might 
one test the object of the condition?

Anyone care to hold forth?

Ryan Ismert
Software Developer
Sportvision, Inc.  


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