[Gllug] Re: Gllug Digest, Vol 20, Issue 33

[Mike Brodbelt]

On Fri, 2005-02-11 at 09:08 +0000, Doug Winter wrote:

> I don't think copyright (at least in .uk) makes any distinction between 
> distribution to your mother and distribution to a co-worker.  If I copy 
> a copyrighted album and give that copy to a co-worker I'm still in 
> breach of copyright, not just for the act of copying but for 
> distributing the copy.

I think the question is who had the legitimate copy. If you had an
album, and gave a copy to a co-worker, you've breached the copyright,
but only because the licensed copy was licensed to you personally, not
the company. 

In the case of GPL'd software, I think you'd need to establish who it
was that accepted the GPL - the individual, or the company. Now AIUI,
you don't need to accept the GPL to use the software, only to copy it.
So you'd need to argue that it was the company that made the copy, and
not the individual employee. Basically, I think if you could
successfully argue that the employee was just the "hands of the
company", then you might get away without being in breach, If a court
held that it was the employee themselves who accepted the license, then
that person would have breached the GPL by withholding source from
anyone, internal or external.

It would need a court to actually decide, but as far as I see if, if
your interpretation was correct then a sysadmin who installed unlicensed
software at work could be held personally responsible. I don't think
this is the case - it's the company as a whole that gets in trouble.

Mike.

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