[FFmpeg-devel] license violator seeking help to continue his behavior

[Cory Nelson]

On Sat, Jul 25, 2009 at 11:06 AM, Diego Biurrun<diego at biurrun.de> wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 07:51:54PM -0700, Cory Nelson wrote:
>> On Thu, Jun 25, 2009 at 1:12 AM, Diego Biurrun<diego at biurrun.de> wrote:
>>
>> Are you a lawyer?
>
> No.
>
>> I always thought the "will automatically terminate your rights under
>> this License" line in the GPL was meant specifically for that instance
>> of the violation -- and not as a permanent hold that lets the licensor
>> apply new demands outside of the GPL before the licensee ever gets to
>> distribute it again. ?I distribute some of my own code under the GPL
>> and this is useful knowledge.
>
> Read paragraph 4 of the GPL version 2 (LGPL parapgraph 8 is identical)
> again:
>
> ?4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program
> ?except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise
> ?to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will
> ?automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties
> ?who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will
> ?not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in
> ?full compliance.
>
> There is not a word about rights getting restored in there. ?(L)GPL v3,
> on the other hand, does have such provisions.

This raises another interesting point, if your interpretation is true.
 That paragraph doesn't mention that the copyright holder needs to
explicitly revoke rights, or even notice a violation -- it just
happens, the user loses the rights automatically.  I would guess that
every single person owning copyright to (L)GPL ffmpeg code now needs
to explicitly give him back the rights to distribute.  To distribute
on a single person's go-ahead, in this case, would still be copyright
infringement.

-- 
Cory Nelson
http://int64.org