Re: license issue: calling a GPLv2 library

[Rui Miguel Silva Seabra]

Qui, 2006-06-22 às 17:59 +0200, Alexander Terekhov escreveu:
> Rui Miguel Silva Seabra wrote:
> > 
> > Qui, 2006-06-22 Ã s 15:29 +0200, Alexander Terekhov escreveu:
> > > David Kastrup wrote:
> > > [...]
> > > > > To quote Hollaar 
> > > > > (http://digital-law-online.info/lpdi1.0/treatise2.html)
> > > > >
> > > > > http://groups.google.com/group/misc.legal.computing/msg/3cf3e9ee08d2837b
> > > >
> > > > A quote which does nothing to establish the difference between license
> > > > and contract.
> > >
> > > Intelectual property licenses are contracts. There's no "difference",
> > > stupid.
> > >
> > > Hollaar wrote:
> > 
> > Whatever. Where's the law saying that:
> > a) copyright licenses are contracts?
> > b) patent licenses are contracts?
> > c) trademark licenses are contracts?
> > d) ...
> 
> In re: Aimster Copyright Litigation, 334 F.3d 643, 644 (7th Cir. 2003) 
> (“If a breach of contract (and a copyright license is just a type of 
> contract) . . . ”); see also McCoy v. Mitsuboshi Cutlery, Inc., 67 F.3d 
> 917, 920 (Fed. Cir. 1995) (“Whether express or implied, a license is a 
> contract ‘governed by ordinary principles of state contract law’ ”.)
> "This implied license does not offend the protection afforded patent 
> and trademark rights by federal law. Instead, licenses, like other 
> federal property and contract rights, conform to the applicable state 
> laws. See Power Lift, 871 F.2d at 1085; see also Mallinckrodt, 976 
> F.2d at 703. As this court observed in Power Lift, the Supreme Court 
> has held that federal patent law does not preempt enforcement of 
> contracts under state law. Id. (discussing Aronson v. Quick Point 
> Pencil Co., 440 U.S. 257, 261-64, 201 USPQ 1, 4-6 (1979)). By the 
> same reasoning, federal trademark law does not preempt contract 
> enforcement either. Intellectual property owners "may contract as 
> they choose," Mallinckrodt, 976 F.2d at 703, but their intellectual 
> property rights do not entitle them to escape the consequences of 
> dishonoring state contractual obligations"
> 
> That's the law. Go read the cases.

Not only that's not "the law" but also what it says is that all those
items do not *preempt* enforcement of contracts.

That is to say that when you distribute a GNU GPL derivative, even if
the license requires you to release it under the GNU GPL you can't do
that if a contract specifically doens't allow you to do that. As a
result you will not be able to respect the GNU GPL, and as such you will
not be able to publish that derivative work.

I guess a chicken understands law better...

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