Does anti-discrimination law apply to software licenses? Related: Can a software license validly restrict place of use, or impose restrictions on the type or purpose of use As per the above thread, it seems like it is perfectly legal in the USA to attach arbitrary conditions of use to software licenses. I do know that Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 generally bans discrimination with respect to &quot;public accommodations&quot; which may be privately-owned services such as hotels or restaurants, but I'm not finding anything that specifies whether discriminating against someone with respect to licensing software violates the Civil Rights Act or any other US federal law such as the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Is it lawful for the owner of the copyright of a software product to attach discriminatory usage conditions on it in such a way that such conditions would violate US federal law if the discrimination was instead done with respect to a public accommodation? If it is unlawful, is the offending (discriminatory) license clause invalidated (i.e. it is not part of the license), or does the clause remain valid but subject the licensor to liability for a discrimination lawsuit? For example, any of the following hypothetical license clauses could be considered discriminatory under my definition above: Persons with epilepsy must purchase an additional $50 Epilepsy License Rider in order to use this software. Purchasing this rider does not grant you access to epilepsy-related services, but only allows you to use this software despite having a medical diagnosis that would otherwise disqualify you from holding a license. If you hold a valid license to use this software and receive a new diagnosis of epilepsy, you shall have 30 days to purchase a Rider before your license to use the software terminates as a result of your disability. (disability discrimination) Notwithstanding any other part of this license or any other correspondence or arrangement with Licensor, members of the Church of Scientology are forbidden from using this software. (religious discrimination) This software is for white people only. It shall be a violation of the terms of this license for any black, Asian, or otherwise nonwhite person to use the software. (racial discrimination) By clicking the &quot;agree&quot; button below, you represent and warrant that you are a woman as defined under the family law code of Texas. False certification shall be a violation of the license and shall terminate your right to use the software. For the avoidance of doubt, men may not use this software. (gender discrimination) Are software license clauses such as the ones above lawful under US federal copyright and anti-discrimination law? In other words, if I write some software in the USA, do I have the freedom to decide to permit only people in certain racial, religious, etc. groups to use it or to require persons in certain groups (e.g. black people) to pay more for the same license, or do I have to obey anti-discrimination laws in who I license to and under what terms? Discussion: Questions about why someone would want to discriminate in this way are out of scope for this question. Similarly, why someone would want to use software whose owner wants to forbid them from using it for discriminatory reasons is also out of scope. I am aware that some software might represent niche areas of interest that would appeal primarily to members of certain protected groups. For example, an app for Talmud study would probably appeal primarily to Jewish users and not, for example, to Muslims, Buddhists, or Scientologists. My question could be whether I could lawfully publish a Talmud study app that only Jews are licensed to use or whether doing this would either invalidate the restrictive license clause (allowing non-Jewish people to license the app for the same price or under the same conditions as anyone else) or subject me to liability for discrimination. In response to Neil Meyer, I am not asking whether there is a distinction in law between lawful discrimination like choosing who to date or whose products to buy for personal use and unlawful discrimination like deciding not to hire people from a certain racial group for my business. I know that such a distinction is made and that it is not illegal for me to refuse a date on racial grounds or decide to quit my job because I discovered that the company was affiliated with a religion I disapprove of. I am not asking about what discrimination means, I am asking if what is commonly considered unlawful discrimination in public accommodation, employment, etc. is legal if it relates only to software licenses. For example, if I publish a &quot;Standard Edition&quot; of my software for $50 and then a &quot;Special Low-Cost Edition for White People Only&quot; at $20 with an EULA that specifies that the license is void if purchased by a non-white person, is that legal as long as I disclose what I am doing (e.g. on the box or on my website)? In response to a comment by gnasher729, this question has nothing to do with Scientology per se. I am simply using it as an example of a religion. In the USA, Scientology is considered a bona-fide religion under law and it is unlawful to discriminate against Scientologists in the same way that it is unlawful to discriminate against Russian Orthodox believers, Wiccans, or members of the Holy Family Temple of Pentecostal Righteousness under God Sabaoth.
It is generally held (see this article) that contracts are subject to 42 USC 1981 All persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right in every State and Territory to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind, and to no other and the wording of the license conditions clearly shows a the &quot;but-for&quot; discrimination cited in the primary holding of Comcast v. National Association of African American-Owned Media that a &quot;§1981 plaintiff bears the burden of showing that the plaintiff’s race was a but-for cause of its injury&quot;. The scope of §1981 is limited to cases of racial discrimination, having been enacted as part of the 1866 Civil Rights Act.
The companies really need to speak to an IP lawyer as this question is seeking specific advice which this site is loathe to give out for fear of compouding issues. The answer would depend on the license agreements and enforceability in various jurisdictions. According to https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/vstudio/en-US/0368d7ee-0eb3-4e3e-a143-4410969a15bb/eula-for-vs2010?forum=vssetup Microsoft says you cant rent out the software - but this applies to the "Pro" version - I could not find anything on the "Premium" version - so most likely Microsoft to have some clam. The flipside is how enforceable this EULA is - and this would probably vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. It would be a very, very good idea to speak to a lawyer before letting Microsoft come onto the premises - as "inviting them" to do this is almost certainly not going to improve the Asians company's case and will allow Microsoft to go fishing further and make it easier for them to expand on and collect evidence should they decide to pursue the matter.
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.
Section 381.00316 is unconstitutional because it is an unjustifiable content-based restriction on speech, in violation of the First Amendment. The law is unconstitutional because private businesses and their owners have a First Amendment right to demand that their customers engage in speech as a condition of doing business. If you've watched Showtime at the Apollo or America's Got Talent, you understand the concept that a business owner can make decisions -- objectively or subjectively -- about what kinds of speech they want to host. If you want to make it through your performance, it's incumbent on you to satisfy the predilections of the business owner. And this doesn't just apply to TV. If you went to a poetry slam at your local coffee shop, the owners could boot you if talked through the performances, making it difficult for other customers to enjoy the show. Likewise, they could boot you if you went to the mic and started spouting racist nonsense, or if you just stood at the mic and said nothing at all. In the Florida case, Norwegian is doing the same thing -- just not for artistic reasons. Beyond requiring customers to pay for a ticket, it is requiring its customers to communicate the message that they are vaccinated, and they are requiring them to communicate using written documentation. In other words, Norwegian is demanding that customers engage in speech (&quot;I am vaccinated&quot;) in a certain way (written proof of vaccination), and that kind of exchange falls within the protections of the First Amendment. That speech is subject to regulation because of its vaccination-related content of that speech, making Section 381.00316 a content-based restriction on speech, which subjects it to strict scrutiny, meaning that the state cannot enforce the law unless it furthers a compelling governmental interest and is narrowly tailored to advance that interest. The state argued that the law furthered compelling governmental interests in protecting medical privacy and preventing discrimination, but the court wasn't buying it: Here, Defendant has presented no evidence to demonstrate that his asserted interests are in response to real problems that Florida residents are actually facing. There is no evidentiary support to show that residents have experienced intrusions on their medical privacy or discrimination because some businesses, including cruise lines, have required COVID-19 vaccination documentation. The legislative record cited by Defendant is bereft of any facts or data underpinning the Statute’s purported purpose. In light of the absence of any appropriate data, reports, or even anecdotal evidence on this issue, the Court cannot conclude that Defendant’s articulated interests are based on a problem that exists in fact. And even if these were compelling interests, the state failed to prove that the law was actually advancing them. Because the law outlawed the exchange of written communication rather than outlawing the vaccination requirements themselves, businesses remained free to demand information about vaccination status (through oral statements, for instance), and to discriminate against who they knew or believed to be unvaccinated. (N.B.: For procedural reasons, they court actually applied intermediate scrutiny, but the law ends up invalid for basically the same reasons.) Section 381.00316 is unconstitutional because it substantially burdens interstate commerce in violation of the Dormant Commerce Clause. The law was also struck down because it intrudes on the federal government's authority to regulate interstate (and international) commerce. When a law is challenged under the Dormant Commerce Clause, courts ask two questions: (1) Does the state law favor in-state economic interests; and (2) Does the state law's burden on interstate commerce outweigh the legitimate local benefits to the state? A &quot;yes&quot; answer to either will invalidate the law. Here, the court held that the law did not directly favor in-state economic interests, but that the burdens on commerce outweighed the local benefits. Because the law did not meaningfully advance any of the local interests it had invoked (as discussed above), but it did impose a substantial burden on interstate commerce because Norwegian's ships travel to additional ports where proof of vaccination is required: Section 381.00316 will prevent NCLH and other cruise lines from possessing verified information necessary to effectively and efficiently process landing and disembarking at various, preferred domestic and international ports where documentary proof of vaccination is required. This affects not only opportunities for vacation activities like sightseeing, but also responses to mechanical and medical emergencies, or even geopolitical crises. Depriving cruise lines of corroboration of passengers’ vaccination status impedes their ability to prepare and address these eventualities. Either the First Amendment violation or the Commerce Clause violation would have been independently enough to invalidate the statute. Norwegian also argued that the statute was preempted by the CDC's Conditional Sailing Order and related orders, but the court declined to address that argument.
Just assuming for the sake of this particular answer that everything happens in the U.S.: I'm not sure about the particular example of Open ZFS. The registration in the USPTO Records is in Oracle's name. Using OpenZFS for distributing the same kind of software as the now closed-source ZFS would seem to be infringing to me absent a license. Maybe Oracle just tolerates the use of the "ZFS" component by third-parties since they decided at some point to license the software under an open source license. In that case, they may have a dilution (http://www.inta.org/TrademarkBasics/FactSheets/Pages/TrademarkDilution.aspx) problem and the mark may be invalid. If the mark is invalid, anybody can pretty much do whatever they want with it. That said, assuming for sake of discussion that the mark is valid, there is indeed such a thing that is similar to the copyright fair use in trademarks (in the U.S. at least). It's called "nominative fair use". You can read more about it here: http://www.inta.org/TrademarkBasics/FactSheets/Pages/FairUse.aspx Bottom line is that under the nominative fair use doctrine it's generally ok for party A to use party B's trademark to refer to whatever party B is doing, even to sell products and services related to whatever party B is doing. As per the INTA document I just linked above, its for example ok to "use “iPhone” in non-stylized form on packaging for phone cases to indicate that it is usable with iPhone 6." Having a website (even with third-party ads) that discuss ZFS-related matters is similar to the iPhone example in my mind. Having a domain name that contains the mark seems riskier, but it's not necessarily downright forbidden. See: http://itlaw.wikia.com/wiki/Toyota_Motor_Sales,_U.S.A._v._Tabari
There is a general EU anti-discrimination directive 2000/43 which in Article 3(1)(h) which applies the standards to housing. This document analyzes Czech anti-discrimination law. If you were discriminated against on the basis of being English, that could support legal action. There is no current EU or Czech legislation that guarantees a right to operate in the language of your choice. There have been calls to create some such legislation. Such legislation would be the implementation of Article 21 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU, which says that Any discrimination based on any ground such as sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age or sexual orientation shall be prohibited. There is under Article 9 of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages a right to use regional or minority languages in judicial proceedings, but there is no generic "right to use your own language". There are occasional cases where governments are sued because their actions linguistically discriminate. As observed here, there was a case in Belgium where the government was sued for not subsidizing French education in non-French territories, but the court said that "Art. 14 cannot be interpreted as guaranteeing children or parents a right to obtain instruction in a language of his choice".
If your own software includes software covered by the GPLv2 (for example by copying source code, or by linking dynamically) then your own software is also covered by the GPLv2, and you will have to provide the source code. This is called a "work based on the Program" on the GPLv2. In this case, however, it seems that your own software does not include software covered by the GPLv2, but you want to put it onto an SD card together with software covered by the GPLv2. That would most likely fall under "mere aggregation of another work", as long as your software and the other software do not interact very closely (such as dynamic linking). To quote the GPLv2: In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this License. So in that case the GPLv2 does not cover your program. You will still have to supply the source code for the GPLv2 software on the SD card. This is covered by section 3 of the GPLv2. Basically, you have two options: send along the complete source code for all the software (would be quite bothersome for a complete distro) or provide a written offer to provide the source code on demand to anyone who asks (you may charge for this, but only to cover your cost) GPLv2 contains a third option, but that only applies to non-commercial distribution. Practically speaking, it should be enough to include a README.txt or similar explaining that the SD card contains software covered by GPLv2, and that you will provide the source code on demand for a certain, reasonable fee (say $5 or $10 per CD). In practice, it is unlikely that anyone would ask for this, as the source code can usually be downloaded for free elsewhere, but if someone does ask, you just charge them $5 and send a CD. Of course, to reduce legal risks it may be prudent to contact a lawyer for your jurisdiction, as this is only general advice.
It's possibe to cover auto-starting apps and cookies under the definition. I'm not convinced and could argue against that but I don't think it matters. The tiny extract you linked isn't a law. It is a definition. It does not say &quot;these things are illegal&quot;. For that, we have to zoom out a little. Section 43 includes the offense in question (emphasis mine): If any person without permission of the owner or any other person who is incharge of a computer, computer system or computer network... introduces or causes to be introduced any computer contaminant or computer virus... So back to the question. Could Steam be considered a virus? Maybe. Is it illegal? No. On the other hand, if I were to gain access to your computer and download Steam, yes that could be an example of breaking that law.