[oclug] Canadian LUGs and SCO

[Rod Giffin]

On Sat, 2003-07-26 at 14:50, Brad Barnett wrote:
> You're not catching on though Rod.  You can not be *tricked* into breaking
> *any* law, and then held liable, if you had reasonable cause to believe
> what you were doing is quite legal and legitimate.  Linux's reputation is
> enough (up until this point) to show that anyone using it had the firm
> belief that it was GPL pure.
> 
> People running Linux today have not broken any copyright laws, because
> _INTENT_ is a large, large part of the law, even in the US.  For example,
> all of part 5 is void, intent was not there! 

Section 5 does not deal with intent, unless an act of fraud was also
committed (eg. fraudulently removing or replacing a copyright notice.) 
Section 5 also specifies that if there is intent, that a breach of
copyright is also an offense (para 506) under 2319 of Title 18... i.e. a
criminal offense.

With respect to royalties, they are a related issue, not the central
issue.  All a copyright holder has to do is to obtain the copyright
registrations, which SCO did last week, and they can, on the basis of
those copyright registrations, charge users who obtained copies of their
work without an SCO license, or paying a royalty,  a royalty.

> I'm not entirely sure why you felt the need to provide this redundant

And, I included in my post relevant information so that if you read it,
you would understand the situation as I see it.  I would prefer you did
not critique the fact that I included something but rather the content
itself, or nothing.  Otherwise, your critique becomes something of a
personal attack, which is simply rude.  

It was included so that you would understand that the licenses are not
paid if SCO's claim turns out to have validity, contrary to your
assertion that "Sorry, the bill has been paid."

There are a couple of other points I have not mentioned before.
IBM is not being sued for 1 billion dollars for 1 issue.  They are being
sued for 1 billion dollars each in identified damages for 3 separate
issues, plus unnamed amounts for 9 separate issues. A total of 3 billion
dollars PLUS,  none of which resolves the licensing issue if SCO should
win in court.

Rod.