I don’t remember seeing this reported here, so figured I’d pass on the
latest news as I found it.

From The Register, an online Tech news service:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/14/open_source_creative_commons_license
_victory/

____________________________

“US judge decrees open source licenses valid

Free software lovers' train pulls into station
By Kelly Fiveash
Published Thursday 14th August 2008 16:21 GMT

Openistas are celebrating a major court victory over a legal spat involving
model railroad hobbyists that will have big implications for the Creative
Commons license.

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington ruled that
just because a software programmer freely gave his work away, it didn’t
follow that it could not be protected.

According to details outlined in the ruling (pdf), Robert Jacobsen had
written and then released code under an Artistic License (an open source or
public license) that requires other people who use it to attribute the
author, flag up the original source of the files and explain how the code
has been modified.

Jacobsen, who manages open source software group Java Model Railroad
Interface, accused commercial software developers for the model train
industry – Matthew Katzer and Kamind Associates Inc – of a breach of
copyright.

He claimed they ignored the terms of the Artistic License by copying certain
materials from his website and incorporating the code into a software
package that programs the chips that control model trains, without giving
appropriate credit.

The appeals court agreed that Katzer and Kamind had violated those terms
and, in turn, infringed the software’s copyright.

Jacobsen had originally sought an injunction to prevent Katzer and Kamind
using the software, but the US District Court for the Northern District of
California threw out his allegations. Yesterday, that decision was
overturned by federal judge, Jeffery S. White in a move that free software
advocates view has a landmark ruling.

Andy Updegrove, an attorney with Gesmer Updegrove LLP in Boston and regular
commentator on software licensing issues, described it as a “big day in
court for the FOSS Community”.

Larry Lessig, who is Professor of Law at Stanford University, said it was a
“very important victory”.

“In non-technical terms," he said. "The Court has held that free licenses
such as the CC licenses set conditions (rather than covenants) on the use of
copyrighted work. When you violate the condition, the license disappears,
meaning you're simply a copyright infringer. This is the theory of the GPL
[General Public License] and all CC licenses.

“Put precisely, whether or not they are also contracts, they are copyright
licenses which expire if you fail to abide by the terms of the license. “

=====================================
  Youth & Skill are no match for Age & Treachery
=====================================
 
Chris Shinn
Winnipeg, Canada
__________________
 


__________ NOD32 EMON 3354 (20080814) information __________

The email was checked by the NOD32 antivirus system:
email to: Digitrax@yahoogroups.com with subject Legal News dated 08/14/2008
21:00 - is OK
email to: Digitrax@yahoogroups.com with subject Legal News dated 08/14/2008
21:00 - is OK

http://www.eset.com