[Insight-users] Legal milestone for open source : Artistic License enforced in Court

[Luis Ibanez]

Legal milestone for open source
By Maggie Shiels
Technology reporter, BBC News, Silicon Valley

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7561943.stm

<quote>
Giving up some rights means you still have protection under the law

Advocates of open source software have hailed a court ruling protecting
its use even though it is given away free.

The US federal appeals court move overturned a lower court decision
involving free software used in model trains that a hobbyist put online.

The court has now said conditions of an agreement called the Artistic
Licence were enforceable under copyright law.

....

"In non-technical terms, the Court has held that free licences set
conditions on the use of copyrighted work. When you violate the
condition, the licence disappears, meaning you're simply a copyright
infringer.

            "This is a very important victory."

According to details outlined in the ruling, Robert Jacobsen had written
and then released code under an Artistic Licence. This meant anyone
using that free code had to attribute the author, highlight the original
source of the files and explain how the code had been modified.

Mr Jacobsen, who manages open source software group Java Model Railroad
Interface, accused commercial software developer Matthew Katzer and his
company of ignoring the terms of the Artistic Licence when they took his
code and used it to develop commercial software products for trains.

An earlier court ruling did not agree with Mr Jacobsen's stance that Mr
Katzer and his company had infringed his copyright and said the licence
Mr Jacobsen used was "intentionally broad." Instead the court ruled he
might be able to claim breach of contract.

Legal experts have said the distinction is important since under federal
copyright law a plaintiff can seek statutory damages and can be more
easily granted an injunction than under contract law.

But now the US appeals court "determined that the terms of the Artistic
License are enforceable copyright conditions".

"Copyright holders who engage in open source licensing have the right to
control the modification and distribution of copyrighted materials,"
Judge Jeffrey White wrote in his 15-page decision.

"Open source licensing has become a widely used method of creative
collaboration that serves to advance the arts and sciences in a manner
and at a pace few could have imagined just a few decades ago," Judge
White said

....

The ruling has implications for the Creative Commons licence which
offers ways for work to go into the public domain and still be
protected. These licenses are widely used by academic organisations like
MIT for distributing coursework, scientific groups, artists, movie
makers and Wikipedia among others.

...

"This opinion demonstrates a strong understanding of a basic economic
principle of the internet; that even though money doesn't change hands,
attribution is a valuable economic right in the information economy."

...

He told the Wall Street Journal: "Lots of companies rely on open source,
and if they had lost their ability to enforce their rights they would
have shied away from the software."

</quote>