On Mon, 13 Nov 2006, Kern Sibbald wrote: >> To put it bluntly anyone who violates the licensing agreement is a >> software pirate. >> >> Software piracy is a criminal activity in most countries, usually with >> some threshold for enforcement - but in the case of embedded systems >> that's trivially reached > > Well, I share your frustrations, but I'm not too sure that a copyright > violation is a criminal offense.
In most jurisdictions once the value exceeds a certain level (eg $50,000 in the USA, lower levels in the EU) then it becomes a criminal matter if the copyright owner files complaints. > Even if it is a criminal offense, I suspect that most copyright violations > (not just software) are resolved through civil proceedings. Correct. In fact the vast majority of them never get to court because the violator's lawyers will advise early settlement. EG: Tomtom, Linksys... > In any case, if it is a criminal offense, I suspect that one would have > a hard time getting the judicial system to accept/investigate a criminal > copyright complaint in civil law countries like Switzerland except in > the most wildly flagrant cases ... Time will tell. :) >> So far there has been no criminal enforcement of GPL license violations >> (surprise surprise) but I get the impression that various taiwanese makers >> are edging ever-closer to it.... > > What do you mean? Are you saying that Taiwanese makers are in violation of > license agreements? Yes. many seem unware of licensing rules, or simply ignore them. USA corps also seem to try and claim that the GPL is not legally binding (eg Dlink), however such claims have always lost in court. AB ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security? Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job easier Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache Geronimo http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=120709&bid=263057&dat=121642 _______________________________________________ Bacula-users mailing list Bacula-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users
