Who can publish GPLv4? I was thinking about the or later part that is often used in licensing software. When reading https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html, I've found this: The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions of the GNU General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns. However, nowhere in the text of the license is specified what is &quot;The Free Software Foundation&quot;. The wording would be satisfied if I registered entity called &quot;The Free Software Foundation&quot; in Uruguay or somewhere and released something called GPLv4. Would that actually be legal? Reading the text of the license, it should be enough, but since I have no legal background I'm not sure.
In practice, it is abundantly clear to which entity the “Free Software Foundation” refers, even if the FSF were to change its name, even if there are unaffiliated organizations with the same name. Version 3 of the GPL also contains a link to the FSF website, making it clear which organization this referred to in 2007 when the license text was published. If there are doubts about the identity of the FSF in the future, it will be possible to trace the identity back to the 2007 FSF e.g. through public filings that the FSF is required to make available as a non-profit. Previous versions of the GPL contained an address for the FSF, which similarly disambiguates the identity of this entity at the time of writing. The FSF also holds a trademark for the brand &quot;Free Software Foundation&quot; in the US and EU, preventing an unaffiliated organization from using this name in an international context. Of course this doesn't affect an organization in Uruguay, but it's very clear that such an Uruguyan entity is not the FSF that wrote the GPL. The interesting questions is what happens if the FSF is dissolved. Can it assign its responsibilities and rights as the GPL license steward to someone else? I assume it can, and that the subsequent license steward would be able to produce sufficient documentation to substantiate this claim. If not, those are likely to be some interesting court cases.
Each country has its own copyright law, but the majority of countries have signed the Berne Copyright Convention, and most of those that have not, have joined the TRIPS agreement, which includes most of the same provisions. See Wikipedia for a list of those countries that do not adhere to Berne. Bangladesh is not on the list. The Berne Copyright Convention specifies the basics of copyright protection, requires a minimum term of protection, requires that copyright be granted without any formalities such as a copyright notice or registration, and requires that authors from other signatory countries be given at least as much protection as authors from the current country. It leaves many details to local law, however, including what exceptions to copyright are allowed. However, the Berne Convention does not require that buying a work that infringes copyright be treated as infringement, and I do not know of any country where it is, although I do not know the details of copyright law in Bangladesh In the united-states the copyright owner has the right to make or authorize the making of copies and to distribute or authorize the distribution of such copies. But once an authorized copy has been sold, the owner of the copy may re-sell it, lend it, or give it away to anyone, and no permission from the copyright owner is required. In the US this is called the &quot;First Sale Doctrine&quot;. The laws of many other countries, including the EU countries and the UK, are similar in this regard. That means that it is perfectly legal to take lawfully created and purchased copies into another country and resell them there. Moreover, if someone makes a copy without permission, or knowingly distributes such a copy, that person commits copyright infringement, and could in theory be sued, but the buyer does not. It should be noted that under US law the First Sale Doctrine does not apply to unauthorized (pirated) copies. It is copyright infringement to knowingly sell (but not to buy) unauthorized copies under US law, and it is an infringement to re-sell such copies if the seller knows that they are unauthorized, although at a private sale this is not likely to be enforced. The Copyright law of Bangladesh is somewhat different. Section 71 (in chapter 13) provides that infringement occurs: (a) when any person, without a license ... or in contravention of the conditions of a license ... (a)(i) does anything, the exclusive right to do which is by this Act conferred upon the owner of the copyright; ... (b) When any person- (b)(i) makes for sale or hire, or sells or lets for hire, or by way of trade displays or offers for sale or hire, or (b)(iv) imports into Bangladesh, any infringing copies of the work. The &quot;exclusive rights&quot; are given in section 14(1) of the same act (part of chapter 3) The relevant ones are: (a) to reproduce the work in any material form including the storing of it in any medium by electronic means; (b) to issue copies of the work to the public except copies already in circulation; At the end of section 14, it is noted that: For the purposes of this section, the copy which has been sold once shall be deemed to be a copy already in circulation. This seems to be the Bangladesh version of the First Sale Doctrine, and it does not, at least not explicitly, contain the same rule as US law does, that to see or rent an unauthorized copy is infringement, even if there was a previous sale. But such a rule may have been imposed by caselaw. So a copy of a book (or any other protected work) purchased in Bangladesh might or might not have been properly authorized, but the purchaser is not committing infringement in either case. Section 74 of the Bangladesh copyright act does provide that ⎯(1) The Registrar, [may] ... order that copies made out of Bangladesh of the work which if made in Bangladesh would infringe copyright shall not be imported. (2) ... the Registrar or any person authorized by him in this behalf may enter into any air-craft, ship, vehicle, dock or premises where any such copies ... may be found and may examine such copies. (3) All copies to which any order made under sub-section (1) applies shall be deemed to be goods of which the bringing into Bangladesh has been prohibited or restricted under section 16 of the Customs Act, 1969, (Act IV of 1969) and all the provisions of said Act shall have effect accordingly This appears to permit the seizure of improperly imported copies, but not prosecution of a purchaser of such copies. Whether it would be likely to be enforced in the case of copies sold in a street market I could not guess. Moreover, it is unlikely that a publisher will find it worth its while to sue a street market seller, even if that person sells a clearly pirated copy of a book, particularly in a foreign country (foreign to the publisher, that is). The publisher or copyright owner probably could sue, depending on the details of the law in the country where the sale occurs. But the suit would have to be brought in the courts of that country, and might well cost more to bring than any plausible damage award would yield. Still some copyright owners might sue if they learn of such a sale. But the buyer is not at risk unless the law in the country where the sale takes place is different from that of most countries in this matter.
Yes. The license itself is really just one sentence long, and states explicitly that this is allowed. Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
I believe the author has published it online. I agree. It is posted at his publisher's website. However, I am unsure if I'm allowed to read it. This answer assumes you are in jurisdiction whose copyright laws is based upon the Berne convention (i.e. the civilized world + USA). Assuming it was the author published it online, it is perfectly legal to read it. Technically, the author is performing his work by putting it online, and by reading it, you are just enjoying his performance. Also, if you are in a jurisdiction with an explicit exception from copyright for personal use, or where fair use allows making copies for personal use, it would also be legal to download it, or to print it on paper (but for personal use only). As for downloading and printing for non-personal use - that is not legal in Berne jurisdictions.
I cannot speak for civil law systems (Germany) but in Common Law (UK, USA) systems the law looks at substance rather than form. So: Am I allowed to undo the word-wrapping of all the texts and unindent them, as well as performing a new word-wrap on them? Yes Do I have to make sure that it is readable for everyone on every device, and do I have to make sure that accessibility interfaces are used (e.g. for blind persons, which aren't even the target group of my software)? If they are licences (rather than contracts) they must simply be available; this does not mean universally available. Do I have to make sure, that if my application wouldn't even start correctly on a device, that the user is able to start the application in an impossible, absurd, magic or religious way to ensure that he can read the legal texts or is it enough to state it on the website then? It depends if you want the licences to be enforceable by you on the users or if you are simply complying with your disclosure obligations. See What if the user disagreed with the Terms of Service, but still registered on a website?. Do I have to make sure that the rendering of the licenses/privacy policy/impressum is performant (e.g. text rendering and refresh after scrolling takes less than a second)? I already have to include two external libraries with my software to display the texts, otherwise it would not be possible to display texts at all. No - make them wait if you want.
Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer. This advice may be materially inaccurate. What does redistribution mean? Redistribution means you have somehow caused the software to make its way to another person. Things that probably count as distribution: Placing the file on a public website. Printing the binary in hex onto paper and giving that paper to someone else. Putting the file onto a USB drive and handing it to someone. Putting the file onto your own computer, then giving that computer to someone else. Putting the file onto a shared network drive. Things that probably don't count as distribution: Copying the files onto your own computer(s) Compiling the program Placing the program on your phone. Printing out the source code on paper, but not sharing it. As a practical matter, I recommend ensuring that BSD license accompanies any instances of the software, even if you don't intend to distribute those instances. If you don't distribute it, then nobody will see it. If you &quot;inadvertently&quot; distribute the software, then including the license means you are in compliance. Should you include the license in the exe or in the same folder: The specific clause is: Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. Including the license in the exe (e.g., via some sort of credits menu) is typically fine. I'll note that this is the approach used by Chrome (help-&gt;about chrome has a link to &quot;other open source software&quot; which includes these licenses). This approach works well for software which makes use of an installer, since users probably won't be looking in the install folder. Including the license in the folder adjacent to the exe is also typically fine. If your application does not have an install process (e.g., installed via xcopy deployment), then this approach works well, since users will easily be able to find the license. If your software is sold in a physical box, then printing out the license and including that license inside the box also works. What if I violate the license by not including the BSD terms? If you violate the license, you are subject to a lawsuit for copyright violation. What happens next depends on how the copyright owners wishes to proceed: Some copyright owners will sue. The actual results/penalties for such a violation will depend on a variety of factors. Some copyright owners will ask you to comply with the license. If you respond by apologizing and then complying, that's as far as it will go. Some copyright owners will ask you for money (with threat of lawsuit). I would expect this result if the copyright owners offers a dual-licensing scheme (i.e., where you can pay the copyright owner to exclude the acknowledgement).
The copyright holder is free to release the work under whatever licenses the copyright holder wants, in the absence of a contract saying otherwise. A copyright holder could sign a contract not to release under another license, but otherwise I don't see why he or she would waive the rights. The copyright holder can always decide not to reissue under a different license. The copyright holder basically retains all rights not specifically signed away. Everyone else is limited to what copyright law allows and to what license terms they have.
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