GPL Compliance and Licensing: More background about the Cisco case | Hacker News Reader

GPL Compliance and Licensing: More background about the Cisco case

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15 pointsprakash12 comments

A bridge too far, I fear. I've read the complaint and it appears that Cisco/Linksys has been unhelpful & lazy about compliance. But one of FSF's demands is silly and the other is kind of scary and I can understand why Cisco is kicking.

Silly: The demand that Cisco contact all owners of infringing products over the last 5 years is ridiculous. I have one of the WRT45G routers I bought with cash 4 years and 2,000 miles away. If these things were giving people cancer they still couldn't find me.

Scary: “Linksys shall compensate FSF ... for its past distribution of FSF programs in a manner that did not comply with the applicable free software license.”

What's the going rate for infringement? $150,000 per copy or something?

> But one of FSF's demands is silly and the other is kind of scary and I can understand why Cisco is kicking.

The FSF's demands are a good deal more lenient than what Microsoft's would be if you made illegal copies of their software.

If Cisco are in breach of the GPL, they have committed copyright infringement, which is illegal. It's just as illegal (or ought to be) if the work they've infringed is published under a free software license or a non-free license. If Cisco didn't like the terms of the GPL, they were free not to use GPL'ed software.

For a business to sell products containing GPL'd software without complying with the license is as bad as a business making counterfeit DVDs and selling them on street corners; in both cases it is serial copyright infringement for profit.

(IANAL, but maybe the GPL could be changed so that users have the choice of complying with the usual terms or paying the FSF $1000 per copy; then any infringers would be liable for some multiple of that amount per infringing copy).

"What's the going rate for infringement? $150,000 per copy or something?"

There is a range for statutory damages from $750 - $30000 per WORK (not per copy).

There is no reason to believe that the FSF would be awarded anything more than the minimum since they have not suffered any economic damage from the infringement.

Ah! Good catch, thank you. That is a huge difference.

So they are demanding about a million cash maximum, plus a dedicated compliance officer, plus a recall-like effort to notify millions of customers about a "defect" that few will care about or understand -- in effect, subsidizing FSF's educational and advocacy efforts.

Hmm. This seems a little more reasonable but I still think this is a big risk on the part of the FSF.

Not silly: They are probably aiming at getting a ruling (or negotiated settlement) on the lines of requiring Cisco to contact those owners of infringing products for whom contact details are available, and to pay for some advertising to try to reach the others.

Scary: The penalties for infringement are deliberately set, by law, to be scary. It will be a deterrent to future infringement.

(IANAL) FSF has to make those silly/scary claims in their suit because lawsuits much like negotiations will end up starting at extremes of price and will work their way to a generally 'reasonable' middle ground. Which may be something more like a bunch of money to FSF from Cisco.

Also, we might get some good case law if this actually goes to trial.

Not quite -- these are the demands they made before the lawsuit. The actual lawsuit demands are even more astounding -- including cease & desist and the turning over off all profits made from the alleged infringement.

You think people should be allowed to keep the profits they made by the infringement? Then where is the deterrent to future infringement.

As for the cease and desist: they want them to stop infringing - what do you expect? That they will say "we are suing but they are welcome to carry on doing what we are suing them for".

I do not know what you find astounding. If these remedies were no available, you might just as well abolish copyright law as it currently exists.

Not at all, nor am I arguing Cisco's case. I think Cisco has stepped in a big cow pie.

However, I think FSF is taking a big risk as well. The original demands, pre-lawsuit, were already rather severe and in the case of notification, silly. No one goes to that much effort about a product recall unless it is catching fire or something.

I understand that FSF is trying to prove a point, and a valid one, but I also fear what will happen now that someone has finally called their bluff.

They are asking for profits because that is one of the legal remedies they are entitled to. It sounds pretty severe, like Cisco stands to lose a lot of money but I really doubt that the FSF would be awarded anything here.

The defendant (Cisco) gets to deduct "the elements of profit attributable to factors other than the copyrighted work." (17 U.S.C. § 504 of the US Copyright Act).

I imagine if you take the profit from a single revision of a firmware image and subtract everything that is not attributable to the Readline library (for example, named in the complaint) you can safely round that down to zero.

as time goes gnu/gpl/fsf looks like a license troll to me

So... anybody hear Cisco's side of this story yet?

Apparently, they weren't quite denying access to the source code outright but placed it on their website (where 1 hn commenter managed to find it, presumably, not after that much time). What about those requests the FSF claims went unheard?

Seriously, if not the lawsuit, at least the demands leveled against Cisco are ludicrous.

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