RIAA to help enforcing the GPL

La version française de cet article est disponible ici

Free/Iliad is a French Internet provider with a whooping €1B in revenues. Its founder Xavier Niel boasts  being a very profitable business with all salaries representing only a few percents of Free’s revenues: a performance that might be better explained by the amount of open source  leveraged by their massive infrastructure.

Unlike Cisco for instance Free  picks and chooses which open source should be distributed and which should not.  In this instance, Free/Iliad chose not to  distribute the source of the GPLed  software running  on their customers' routers, the aptly-named  Freebox.

As a result, 3 open source developers recently sent the equivalent of a cease and desist letter to Free /Iliad reminding them of their duties regarding GPL-licensed code. (Google translation, from the  French Financial newspaper “Les Echos” ) ).

Worth  noting is that at for the first time a year ago,  a judge decided upon the enforceability of the GPLv2 in France.  (read a Google translation of an article from the magazine PCinpact)

What’s of particular interest here is the way Mr. Niel argues the GPL is irrelevant to this case. His claims is roughly this:  my  3,000,000 GPLoaded-home routers are part of my  network therefore the GPL doesn’t apply since I don’t distribute any software outside of my network.

His reasoning is articulated as follow:

    1.    We don’t sell our routers (the so-called Freebox) to our customers (i.e. the box belongs to us)
    2.    Those are just  bricks (well 3,000,000 of them) in our network termination (Here he is careful to avoid  French terms for lending or giving)
    3.     Since the GPL doesn’t compel me to distribute licensed software that is used on my network only, I’m not under any obligation to provide any source code.

Nice, Mr. Niel did read the GPL .  Is GPLv2 enforcement doomed? Not quite, let's call to the RIAA (At last this organization might have found here some raison d'être)

What might have escaped Mr. Niel are the ludicrous -if not funny- consequences of his reasoning. Imagine the following scenario:

    1.    I’m a cable company and I will provide (not give, lend or sell, remember) all of my customers with a router-computer combos so that they can plug it into my cable.
    2.    Then I will buy from content providers ( news or game publishers, from national geographic, to sport magazines etc.) one and only one site license to use on my (only) network
    3.    Therefore if the above holds (as I’m sure the RIAA would agree  :-) ), I can have all of my customers accessing all this content for next to nothing.

Well, let me think about it: with enough such site licenses for mainstream games, I can certainly jack up the pricing of my internet access 20 times or more, it’s still going to be worth for the end user! 

How stupid does Mr. Niel think French judges are? (Please don’t answer that).

However if you want to help, send me your ideas to kill such preposterous defense and I’ll forward them to people that might be interested (please don’t put those ideas into your comments, they might be read by the wrong side of the force). You can also contribute here.

At the end think about it:  what does distributing or conveying really mean?

 

If the Navy were to launch missiles with GPLed software in their warheads can the orphans sue  for copyright infringement?

 

PS: Here is a funny account of a company trying to work around the GPL 

Article quoted by:

• Matt Asay in  c|net blog The Open Road (Where I go by the  name  of Pierre)
  
• Dave Guard in Free Software Daily
• Scott Ruecker on LXer
• Pamela Jones on   Groklaw.net (who pointed out that the first  French GPL ruling dated back a year ago)
• Mike Masnick on TechDirt

Comments

[Nathan]

> If the Navy were to launch missiles with GPLed software in their warheads can the orphans sue for copyright infringement? I don't think so. How likely does a warhead get launched then fails to explode leaving the hardware AND software intact?

[Milking the GNU]

Well, no need for the warhead to stay intact the explosion is the proof of distribution: if somebody writes a GPL-based virus that wipes out your HD (including itself) would you argue that the exec hasn't been distributed when in fact it has been executed?

:)

[matt]

Hi, I recall a test case in English law many years back when Sunday trading was mostly illegal. The exception to the rule were things like vegetables and certain glossy magazines. Anyway, a small shopkeeper decided to sell potatoes for the price of _whatever you really wanted_. He'd then give you the desired item for free. Great idea, made the newspapers, he was taken to court and lost. A few years later however, Sunday trading laws were repealed. Cumulative sillyness, heavy lobbying (I suspect) and rampant disregard for the law saw to that one.

[La mouche du coche]

I happen to be a customer of Free.

I checked very thoroughly and I cannot find any CD or floppy or tape or USB gizmo or input port to load a single byte into the Freebox. The only way for it to get its software is by plugging it on a phone line that has an Iliad equipment on the other side ("ligne dégroupée" in french).

In my book, this means that yes, the Freebox is either part of Free's network or can only be used as a brick to keep a door opened.

This whole suit smells pretty bad since a competitor of Free happens to be involved.

[Milking the GNU]

To: La mouche du coche

1- Indeed the Freebox doesn't have any Floppy or USB port, so what? The software to run the box is dynamically downloaded in memory at boot time. The fact that you cannot easily see or access the GPL-ed exec does NOT mean it hasn't been distributed. If you have a Tivo home, you cannot easily access the software, yet it does not mean that the Tivo box belong to the network of your internet provider. Assume that your provider provides you with a plug-and-play TV with 50 channels. Will you argue that all broadcasts are purely "internal"?!

2- Competitor involved: even if it is true, it's only leveling the playing field, especially if the competitor in question offers its own GPLed code to download ...

[Geoff]

"If the Navy were to launch missiles with GPLed software in their warheads can the orphans sue for copyright infringement?"

Not unless the orphans wrote the software...

[Milking the GNU]

Actually copyright can be transferred by will or inheritance; so it can also work if the deceased parent(s) wrote the software...

[La mouche du coche]

To: Milking the GNU

1- The only way for the freebox to run this code is to plug it into Free's network. QED.

[Milking the GNU]

1- The only way for a TV or a Tivo box to run (or record) a movie is to plug into my cable ...

[Steph]

The only way, in my opinion, for the "bricks" to be part of a single network is if ALL of the infrastructure between the servers and the "bricks" is either wholly owned or exclusively controlled by Free. The other thing that should be argued is the definition of "site". I find it impossible to believe that anyone would accept that any non-contiguous space can be defined as a single site.

[Finite]

I think most site licenses are pretty specific about what constitutes a "site"; the RIAA would certainly not be helpful in your hypothetical attempt to distribute content to the public under a "site license".

The GPL's permission to distribute the software is clearly contiginet upon meeting the GPL's conditions -- so the question for Free would be, without any permission from copyright holders, would they be able to include whatever non-free software they want on their devices? Obviously not.

It is a laughable defense, and not likely to ever be presented before a judge.

[Clark Asay]

Pierre, I haven't been able to locate much about the 2007 French court decision regarding GPL enforceability (granted, I don't read French). Is there a reason more information hasn't been circulated about it?

[mtg]

@Clark Asay
French justice is slooooow ...

mtg

[Keyla]

Torrents search engine may be very useful, if your aim is to quickly http://www.torrentbasket.com/the-twilight-saga-eclipse find a torrent file

[sadia]

The article is written in a very good manner.It help me in my college project.Thanks for sharing it.

[bathroom designs]

Hey
RIAA to help enforcing the GPL
Saying thanks will certainly not simply be sufficient
This sort of clever work and coverage! Keep up the good works
Thank you!