Olivier Berger oberger@april.org wrote:
Jan Schaumann a écrit :
Now my question is, if there is no equivalent to the US-Copyright, does the GNU GPL hold in Europe?
I think that nothing refers in the GPL directly to any precise american copyright law.
+------------ GPL ---------------- | | GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE | TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION | | 0. This License applies to any program or other work which contains | a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed | under the terms of this General Public License. The "Program", below, | refers to any such program or work, and a "work based on the Program" | means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law | +----------------------------------
I think it's safe to assume that the term "under copyright law" refers to the US american copyright law.
Instead, the GPL grants the user some right, and prevents others to prevent this (in french, in '68 they had a moto : "Il est interdit d'interdire" ;)... and this has not really anything to do with copyright, as it is a licence contract that both parts (or I should say many parts) agree on in using and distributing the software.
Ack. However, it is related to copyright in so far as that they often speak about the "original copyright-holder". I'm sure it's obvious that the appropriate equivalent in other countries should take the place of "copyright" in this context, but who know what lawyers could make out of this...
So, the absence of copyright notion in the European law systems is not a restriction preventing us to use the GPL.
Certainly not from using the GPL, but it might render the GPL somewhat more vulnerable in some states, depending on the local copy-right (to distinguish from the american "copyright") laws.
Of course, IANAL, so I'd be interested in some responses from people with a clue, who are able to explain things in laymens terms.
Hmm... these are only my understandings and I'm no law professionnal, just a free software user and programmer... so correct me if I'm wrong.
I always wondered why there is the acronym "IANAL" - this should be implied; insted there should be an acronym "I_A_AL", but then again it's not as amusing to some people. Whatever, sorry, I rambling ;-)
Cheers,
-Jan