On Tue, Aug 26, 2003 at 07:10:46PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote: > On Mon, Aug 25, 2003 at 11:51:49AM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: > > On Mon, Aug 25, 2003 at 04:03:20PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote: > > > Nor is "Not being able to change it to look exactly like `solitaire.exe'", > > > but you can't do that, either. And yet we can still distribute lots of > > > things that you can change to look exactly like `solitaire.exe' under > > > the terms of the GPL. > > This is essentially false, as Branden has already commented. (Unless > > you happen to live in one of those freaky countries where copyright > > behaves like patents, but I think we'll have to ignore them) > > "You're wrong, and we'll ignore anywhere where you may be right." > > Nice to see we're working towards consensus.
You have founded your argument upon laws which are inimical to copyleft licenses, and which do not apply throughout the US or EU - and which we still haven't seen any concrete examples of. I can't rebut this any more than I can rebut an argument that says "But if local law prohibits commercial use of software, then non-commercial-use-only clauses do not add any extra restrictions and are therefore both DFSG-free and compatible with the GPL". > You're invited to demonstrate an instance of someone coming up with the > exact same expression of the exact same copyrightable idea being sued > for copyright infringement and winning on the grounds of independent > reinvention. For bonus points make it an instance where they had access > to the original work. I'll have to pass on this one, as I've never heard of anybody being sued for this at all, but I counter-invite you to come up with an example of anybody coming up with the same expression of the same copyrightable idea being sued for copyright infringement and *losing*. I don't think any case law exists (or ever will exist) on the subject, so we'll have to work with the statutes - which, at least in the US and EU, are fairly clear that independant innovation is a valid way to avoid copyright issues. Furthermore, I invite you to find a country where laws which support your position actually exist. Otherwise we'll have to dismiss your argument as handwaving. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- |
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