Enforcing the GPL license on software I published a software project under the GNU Affero General Public License version 3.0. I have written the code behind it, hence I am the copyright holder. According to the AGPL license, anyone who redistributes this software or a derivative must distribute it under the GPL as well. Recently, I saw a distribution of a modified version of my software distributed under another license, and also violating other terms of the AGPL v3.0. I have contacted several organisations, such as Free Software Foundation (FSF) gpl-violations.org but I did not receive any response. I do not have adequate (financial) resources (and time) to hire a lawyer just to settle this small issue, especially as this is just a side project of mine. How do I enforce the license of my AGPL software, and take action on the violators of the license(to comply with the AGPL)? There are a lot of information on the Internet on how to use the (A)GPL on your software but very few sources of information on how you can enforce it when someone violates the license. Thank you.
This kind of piracy is unfortunately common. When your copyright has been violated, your available response is to sue the infringer. Yes, this costs money, and yes, many infringers get away with it. In the Free Software/Open Source community, a couple of actors including the FSF, gpl-violations.org/Harald Welte, and the Software Freedom Conservancy have sued GPL infringers. But they can only do that for copyrights that they hold themselves. For example, the FSF holds copyright for the GNU userland, whereas Welte and Conservancy hold copyright for parts of the Linux kernel. They do not hold copyright for your software so they cannot enforce the AGPL license on your behalf. What can be done fairly easily is to file a takedown request with platforms that host the infringing content. Under various safe harbor laws including the US DMCA, a platform is not responsible if they accidentally host infringing content uploaded by users. However, the platform has to take the content down if they're notified that the content is infringing. For example, you could file a DMCA takedown request with GitHub to take down their repository, in case they are using GitHub. The drawback is that a takedown notice can be contested by the alleged infringer, in which case the content is reinstated and you would have to sue. The platform is not allowed to make its own determination about whether you or the infringer is right.
That depends of the combination of licences, up to the point that there may be no solution valid for all of the components and you have to rework your project. The terms from the different licences must be evaluated to see which terms are appliable to the final product. For example, the GPL licence affects all of the source code of your project, and not only to the GPL licenced components1. So, imagine that you get one component under a licence which does not provide the source code (not even to you, even less for distribution) and a GPL licenced component. Incompatibility! Keep in mind also that usually there are several "flavours" and versions of BSD and GPL licences (with some BSD licences being compatible with GPL while others at not), so there is no general rule. That said, BSD licences are usually pretty open, so if you have a mix of (GPL-compatible) BSD licences and GPL licences, you usually can redistribute this with any licence that meets the GPL licence restriction. And, since the GPL forbids adding any additional restriction to GPL licenced code, that is pretty much it. 1That is why GPL is sometimes called a "viral" licence, because it "infects" all the code of your project.
The first thing that people need to do is to quit over thinking it. That being said, I'm going to see if I can tackle your problems one by one, before summarizing and providing my own opinion: Many users don't care if their code is copied. I'm like that. I left a couple comments on Shog9's post that read this: Good point: Licensing does not prevent careless or malicious use. I'm surprised about how many people are thinking that this license will let them steal their code, because it's already happening right now. I don't want to sound pessimistic, but when thousands of people break a license/law/contract, it's a bit of a lost cause. You're not significantly damaged in a direct way, so honestly, let it go. All I want is to make sure that no one can come up to me if something of mine screwed something on there side. Aside from that, I don't care about people who don't attribute me: chances are, they have no moral sanity, and I will appreciate the people who do, and help me out. As it is, I'm 16, I share what I know with a good heart, and in a well-spirited manner, and at the end of the day, knowing that I was able to help someone out makes my day. I don't mind if my code is copied. I know that people will copy my code whether I like it or not, but I also know that there will be people in the world who will say "thanks", and will try to attribute me where possible. I feel good about that. That being said, I don't care. But the person who uses my code does. The license that affects all Stack Exchange posts are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license, or CC BY-SA. Code contributions don't fit well with this. This excellent post on Open Source explains why it's discouraged for code. What these people want is a code-friendly license, so that they can stay in the clear when it comes to copyright issues. The next thing they want, is for someone to come after them over some licensing issue. You may think that people are good, but you never know the world around you. They can be evil. For other users, they don't mind their code being copied to another post, as long as there is a link to the post and a mention of the original author. Most people post with good intention. There's not that much of an issue from a legal perspective either: The license allows people to copy and paste into answers of their own, and since the license remains the same, there's no issue to get into. The license allows it, and contributors kind of have to acknowledge it. I don't think anyone cares what happens to code that is less than 3-4 lines at least. I can probably agree. Such code probably wouldn't be eligible for copyright anyway, since it's so trivial. Many jurisdictions have a "Threshold of Originality," which means that simple things can't be under copyright. Stack Exchange does not probably want people to own the code they submit. For example, Stack Exchange has (and probably wishes to retain) the right to keep even deleted posts in the visibility of the high rep users (even if the author is against it). Wait what? You may be right that it is in Stack Exchange's interest to host content. After all, they get hits, which helps them as a business. It is illegal for companies to host illegal content. If somebody sees objectionable, copyrighted content hosted on Stack Exchange that they would like removed, then they need to file a DMCA Takedown Request. This is also why moderators, like myself, cannot process legal requests. The reason why Stack Exchange doesn't act themselves, even if they see something that is copyrighted and objectionable, is because it's a form of liability. When YouTube began removing copyrighted content themselves, they received a wave of lawsuits (If you remove some, you need to remove all. Why didn't you remove mine? being the argument). The plaintiff's won those, and when YouTube did nothing, they weren't liable at all. If a user wants to have their content taken down, it's tricky. You need to look at the Terms of Service for Stack Exchange: (quoting Section 3) You agree that all Subscriber Content that You contribute to the Network is perpetually and irrevocably licensed to Stack Exchange When Stack Exchanges gets your content, you grant them an irrevocable license to your contribution. This is pretty standard across a lot of sites: it's just a way to secure data and stay in the clear of licensing issues. At the same time, it doesn't seem fair for SE to acquire complete ownership of the content. The user must still have the final say, if the content is to be used for purposes not already agreed upon in the licence. They don't. What users have done is that they have provided a license of their content to Stack Exchange. This is done, again, through their Terms of Service: You grant Stack Exchange the perpetual and irrevocable right and license to use, copy, cache, publish, display, distribute, modify, create derivative works and store such Subscriber Content and to allow others to do so in any medium now known or hereinafter developed (“Content License”) in order to provide the Services, even if such Subscriber Content has been contributed and subsequently removed by You. The user grants a license to their content to Stack Exchange, but they do not assign or relinquish copyright. The code still belongs to them. It's important not to conflate the user contribution policy, with copyright assignment. You are still free to add an additional license to your content (known as dual or multi-licensing), and have a copy for your own use. Stack Exchange will always host a copy licensed under the CC BY-SA license. Stack Exchange can expect a high level of decorum and respect for laws from its users. At the same time, it cannot expect redundant attributions anywhere and everywhere, because one of its main aims is to not waste the users' time. Not only Stack Exchange expects it, but many copyright laws in various jurisdictions require it too. There's a concept known in many jurisdictions known as moral rights. These are rights that are irrevocable, whether you like it or not. Generally, these include attributions, disclaimer of liability, and other rights as well. Even if your work is in the public domain, you still retain these moral rights. If memory serves me right, the right to be attributed is revokable under United States copyright law. Therefore, attribution becomes more a courtesy, when the right is revoked. Licenses such as CC BY, and CC BY-SA still require attribution as a part of their licensing terms. What defines attribution is generally up to the person who uses the content. If memory serves right again, one can not demand how to attribute. There should be a clear-cut way to determine what is code and what isn't. The code formatting indicators on SE may not be adequate because some users simply use backticks, or 4-space indented text for other not-so-codey text. Personally, I feel like making the entirety of a post under both the Creative Commons license and whatever proposed code license they use is the best option, and allow people to use moral judgement to determine the most appropriate license. The concern comes about people who lack such judgment. I bet these same people don't follow the existing license anyway - and are a lost cause. We made it through! There will always be debate on the license of choice. Some people want the GPL, a license that's apparently closer to the status quo of Creative Commons license (I disagree that it's a good match), while other's want permissive licenses, such as the MIT or the Apache licenses. I'd prefer the permissive type, since it allows use in closed-source applications, and grant more rights (i.e. less restrictions) to the people that use them. I'm not going to right much because my hands are tired, but I'm sure if you've got more questions about the open source licenses themselves, you can probably ask on Open Source Stack Exchange.
It is unclear whether WINE is infringing copyright or if it can rely on a fair use defense. The CAFC held that: that the declaring code and the structure, sequence, and organization of the API packages are entitled to copyright protection In that light, if WINE had original content in the structure, sequence, and organization of its API, the CAFC would likely also find that it is entitled to copyright protection. However, because this issue is outside the scope of the CAFC's exclusive jurisdiction (this is a copyright issue, not a patent issue), the holdings are not binding in any other circuit. Each circuit is free to review anew the copyrightability of APIs when such a case comes up. My guess is that this is the reason the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal on CAFC's Oracle v. Google opinion. To address your fair use question would be simply speculation, because fair use is always assessed case-by-case, and even in WINE's closest analogy (Oracle v. Google), the CAFC remanded the fair use question back to the trial court, and that question hasn't been decided yet: we remand for further consideration of Google’s fair use defense in light of this decision
A person that fails to comply with a copyright licence does not have a licence to use the copyrighted material. The owner of the copyright can take all the normal actions for copyright violation including seeking an injunction to stop the breach and/or suing for damages. Additionally, if the breach constitutes criminal activity, then the state can enforce those sanctions. However, suing a Chinese company in a Chinese court is generally a hiding to nothing. I won't say the Chinese legal system is biased towards its citizens but I wont say it isn't either. However, a case can be brought in any jurisdiction where the breach occurs (e.g. the USA) and enforcement action can be taken against any assets located in that jurisdiction.
I wrote a letter to the Eclipse Foundation. The consultant pointed me to section 5 in their FAQ. My case falls under the term "linking". He warned that he isn't a lawyer, but offered the following short answer: The Eclipse Foundation does not consider linking with EPL content to be a derivative work and so you are not required to disclose your source code.
While the Commons Clause is not an Open Source license, the BSD license allows you to do this. To be clear, you cannot change the license of other people's code. You can however add your own code and license it under whatever terms you want. The resulting code then consists of your modifications, under whatever license you want parts of the original code, under BSD-3-clause Since you are a license-taker for the BSD-3-clause material, you must still comply with its license such as providing any recipients with the copyright + license notice. When people receive the software with your modifications, they must comply with both your chosen license terms for your modifications, and with the BSD-3-clause license for the other parts. For example, you can use the Commons Clause to prevent certain competing uses of the software as a whole. But since you will presumably provide the source code of the software, other people are free to use the BSD-3-clause code under the terms of that license, ignoring your restrictions. If you provide binaries then the resulting binary would not be covered by the BSD-3-clause license, but you would still have to provide the copyright and license notice for the original code as a kind of attribution.
No. You cannot be held liable for violating the EULA if you have never used the software and are only reporting what people who did use it told you. Of course, people bring groundless lawsuits all the time and you might have to defend such a lawsuit if you are sued. In some places you could be subpoenaed to disclose your sources, and in others, a reporter's privilege would allow you to quash such a subpoena.