Gnu GPL problem: License copyrighted things under GPL???

Gnu GPL problem: License copyrighted things under GPL???

Post by Ray Chaso » Sun, 31 Dec 1899 09:00:00




>This has not much to do with linux, but more with the GNU GPL.

>I am busy with a pov-ray scene (that's a 3d modeling program) about the
>"Erasmusbrug" a bridge in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. But on the net I
>read a case about a photographer who made a nice photo of that bridge
>(for an advertising campain) but he was mailed by the architect that the
>architect has the copiright on the bridge and it can only be
>photographed for touristical reasons... By the way, the architect can
>claim his right for the copyright (since a law was erased in 1989 that
>public objects couldn't be copyrighted, the erasmusbrug is newer :-(
>But I had planned to make my nice bridge (wich is built according the
>original plans, so it will be copyrighted) available as source code
>under the GNU GPL... Is this legal and if not, what should I do?

The Right Thing is to see a lawyer.  If that's too expensive then I'd
say you're out of luck. :-(

Oh, and please don't post HTML to newsgroups.

--
 --------------===============<[ Ray Chason ]>===============--------------
         PGP public key at http://www.smart.net/~rchason/pubkey.asc
                            Delenda est Windoze

 
 
 

1. Has anyone had copyright problems with code that's shipped under GPL?

I'm trying to persuade my employer to ship a product that would be built
on Linux.

At the moment, I've gotten a question from the lawyer about what we
would do if someone claimed they owned a restricted copyright for part
of the Linux distribution.

The particular hypothetical situation would be, somebody wrote a piece
of code, and copyrighted it as their own, not GPL. Somebody else grabbed
that piece of code and dropped it into something they were doing that
was covered by GPL. Now, we ship it and get sued for every dime that
we've got and have to stop shipping the product... Bad news all the way
around.

Does anybody know of any concrete instances of anything like this?

The only thing I've been able to find on the web is the Linux trademark
case.

Thanks.
--
Ken Aaker

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