1/6/2024 0 Comments Contract register software![]() ![]() ![]() "Ultimately, most TVs on the market today aren't really televisions: they're computers attached to a big display," he said. Kuhn said the SFC brought the case against Vizio to build alternative firmware for Vizio TVs and to exercise the right to repair and improve one's own devices. Vizio in 2017 agreed to pay $2.2 million to settle charges brought by the US Federal Trade Commission that it collected the viewing data from 11 million of its TVs without folks' knowledge or consent. "This remains true today, and this need for consumer privacy and accessibility will be even more important in the future as consumers become more integrated and dependent on computers and other interconnected 'smart' devices for their daily lives." The SFC said it first contacted Vizio in August 2018, to ask the company to publish its SmartCast platform source code, which relies on the Linux kernel, alsa-utils, GNU bash, GNU awk, bluez, BusyBox, and various other software applications, libraries, and frameworks released under the GPLv2 and LGPLv2.1 licenses. "This ruling shows that the GPL agreements function both as copyright licenses and as contractual agreements." “The ruling is a watershed moment in the history of copyleft licensing," said Karen Sandler, executive director of Software Freedom Conservancy, in a statement. Ameriprise Fin (2014), which recognized the GPL imposes an "extra element" – a contractual obligation – beyond what's required by copyright law, the judge in her order wrote, "There is an extra element to SFC’s claims because SFC is asserting, as a third-party beneficiary of the GPL Agreements, that it is entitled to receive source code under the terms of those agreements." The extra elementĬiting Versata Software, Inc. Judge Staton agreed with the SFC's arguments, finding that the GPL functions both as a copyright license and as a contract. Were the GPL interpreted to be only a copyright license, the SFC would have appealed, according to Kuhn, because its complaint asserts only contractual claims and not a copyright claim. To do so, Judge Staton had to decide whether or not the federal Copyright Act preempted the SFC's breach-of-contract allegations in the end, she decided it didn't. ![]() On Friday, Federal District Judge Josephine Staton sided with SFC and granted its motion to send its lawsuit back to superior court. SFC wanted its breach-of-contract arguments to be heard by the Orange County Superior Court in California, though Vizio kicked the matter up to the district court level in central California where it hoped to avoid the contract issue and defend its corner using just federal copyright law. ![]() SFC sued Vizio, claiming it was in breach of contract by failing to obey the terms of the GPLv2 and LGPLv2.1 licenses that require source code to be made public when certain conditions are met, and sought declaratory relief on behalf of Vizio TV owners. The Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) has won a significant legal victory in its ongoing effort to force Vizio to publish the source code of its SmartCast TV software, which is said to contain GPLv2 and LGPLv2.1 copyleft-licensed components. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |