Re: [News] SFLC Responds to Copyright Misconceptions, Presents Moglen Talk

[Hyman Rosen]

On 2/10/2010 1:19 PM, RJack wrote:
> 1) The Best Buys et.al. suit filed by the SFLC is in the Second
> Circuit not the Seventh Circuit of the Gaiman_v._McFarlane suit.

Does that mean you believe the judge was wrong in
McFarlane v. Gaiman? Is it crank vs. court again?

> 2) The Gaiman_v._McFarlane suit was about a declaration of
> ownership, not a copy infringement suit.

The other crank has been arguing that Erik Andersen was wrong
to register copyright in BusyBox because he was not the sole
author. The judge's writing in Gaiman v. McFarlane shows that
such a registration merely represents an author asserting that
he has copyright in a work, not that he has sole copyright.

> 3) You're mixing out of context apples and oranges issues:
> "POSNER, Circuit Judge. Neil Gaiman brought suit under the Copyright Act
> against Todd McFarlane and corporations controlled by him that we can
> ignore, seeking a declaration that he (Gaiman) owns copyrights jointly
> with McFarlane in certain comic-book characters."
>
> Erik Andersen signed a *Complaint* explicitly claiming that:
>
> "20. Mr. Andersen is the author and developer of the BusyBox computer
> program, and the owner of copyrights in that computer program. BusyBox
> is a single computer program that comprises a set of computing tools and
> optimizes them for computers with limited resources, such as cell
> phones, PDAs, and other small, specialized electronic devices."
>
> Erik Andersen is *not* "the author" of the "single computer program"
> know as BusyBox -- this is a patently false statement.

If the defendants wish to deny this claim, they may do so,
and then the plaintiffs will have to prove the truth of this
claim to the extent that it affects the copyright infringement
charges. Presumably the defendants would deny this claim
routinely anyway no matter how it is phrased, since it is not
obviously true and all such claims are denied in responses.

> "31. Mr. Andersen is, and at all relevant times has been, a copyright
> owner under United States copyright law in the FOSS software program
> known as BusyBox. See, e.g., “BusyBox, v.0.60.3.”, Copyright Reg. No.
> TX0006869051 (10/2/2008)."

Notice here that he says "a copyright owner" not "the copyright
owner". The defendants may choose to dispute the details of
ownership of BusyBox, but all Andersen has to do is demonstrate
that he holds some copyright on BusyBox for him to assert that
his rights are being infringed.

> see if Erik claims a compilation copyright on the
> arrangement and selection of the source code.

He doesn't need to claim a compilation copyright. If he has
contributed source code to BusyBox, then he holds copyright
to that portion of it, and anyone distributing BusyBox without
his permission is infringing on his copyright.

> The current SFLC lawsuit is so fucked up it doesn't even deserve the
> label "wrong". Eben Moglen is an incompetent socialist moron.

And yet, in every case the SFLC has filed, the defendants have
chosen to settle and come into compliance with the GPL. You
should consider yourself lucky that the SFLC lawyers are so bad,
else they would have by now wiped non-free software from the
face of the Earth.