Re: GPL vs non-GPL device drivers

[Michael K. Edwards]

On 2/19/07, Alan <alan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > jurisdiction.  Copyright infringement is a statutory tort, and the
> > only limits to contracting away the right to sue for this tort are
> > those provided in the copyright statute itself.  A contract not to sue
> > for tort is called a "license".)
>
> I'd insert large quantities of "In the USA" in the above and probably
> some "not what I've heard from a lawyer" cases.

Name ANY counterexample in the entire history of copyright, anywhere
in the world.  I've sifted through the past couple of decades of US
appellate history until I'm blue in the face, and reviewed Canadian
and British and German and French and EU statutes and decisions, and
read Nimmer on Copyright and Corbin on Contracts and historical
analyses of copyright law going back to the Statute of Anne.  And yes,
I too have conversed with attorneys and other individuals with legal
educations, in the US and Belgium and Brazil.

You have been lied to.  You have been hoodwinked.  You have neglected
to inform yourself about the simplest truths.  The GPL is not a
"copyright-based license", anywhere in the developed world.  There.
Is.  No.  Such.  Thing.
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