[TriLUG] Re: Copyright protection

[Andrew Perrin]

On Wed, 6 Aug 2003, Gnu Man wrote:
> I was hoping to find some documentation that would not hold the users or
> developers responsible for code that they did not know was obtained
> illegally.

Users aren't civilly responsible for using code they didn't know was
obtained illegally. What SCO is trying to do is alert such users that they
may be doing so, then extort^H^H^H^H^H^H charge licensing fees for it as a
way of guaranteeing not to sue the users in the future.  The point is
that, if a judge is smoking something strong enough to find a credible
case here, no linux user will be able to claim s/he didn't know the code
was obtained illegally, since SCO has been playing it up.

ap

>
> Unfortunately, I don't believe such a document exists, and as such these
> disputes must be settled in a court of law :(
>

Different question - what has to be settled in a court of law is whether
SCO actually has a claim on any code incorporated into linux.

The answer, of course, is "no", but that doesn't stop SCO from dragging
down as much as possible with it.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Andrew J Perrin - http://www.unc.edu/~aperrin
Assistant Professor of Sociology, U of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
clists at perrin.socsci.unc.edu * andrew_perrin (at) unc.edu