Today Monsoon Multimedia announced that it was settling the legal action over its alleged violation of GPL2 (see our report last week). Whilst this ends the hopes of those wanting more legal precedents for GPL2, this looks to be a very sound step for Monsoon Multimedia; why waste time and money defending a law suit when you can easily and cheaply comply with GPL2 and get on with business?
There is a plus-side for FOSS supporters, however. The fact that Monsoon has said it will start doing the very thing that the SFLC's allegations centered around - failing to make the Busybox source code available to its customers - helps reinforce the view that this and other requirements in GPL2 are legally enforceable.
Too bad it settled, because I would have like to have seen what the impact would have been on the case when Monsoon brought a motion to dismiss because the copyright holder(s) failed to register the copyright(s).
Posted by: Matt | 24 September 2007 at 06:33 PM
Thanks Matt - that's a very good point. The requirement to register copyright is one that we don't have under UK law.
In the US, you don't need to register copyright for it to exist registration does give certain benefits. The relevant one here is that registration is required before a legal action can be launched in the US courts. If the copyright owners hadn't registered their copyrights, it looks like you're right that it's game over for SFLC.
Posted by: Alex | 25 September 2007 at 08:34 AM