[thelist] Copyright breach - advice please

[Help Center Live - Mike]

Ahh.. I don't believe this, someone has informed me of someone else 
claiming my software as their own. Thats two cases in a week.

http://www.markettalker.com

Ok they have re-branded it, that complies with the GPL license but the 
copyright has changed (design copyright as it is outputted) even though 
the design has not completely changed. Also they are charging a fee for 
it.. they could claim it is a fee for the resources used to download 
the file which I think complies with the GPL but  €25?! thats a bit 
excessive for 200kb of space and bandwidth.
If they are hosting it and charging that fee for usage then not 
providing the source for download anywhere then that is against the 
GPL.. I could not find a download link anywhere.

I have not paid the €25 to download something I coded so I will not 
know if they have changed the copyright in the source files.

These kind of people are really starting to annoy me now. Apart from 
emailing them there is not much i can do which I find most annoying. 
Yes I could consult a lawyer but my pockets are not that deep.

I would most like to know what their website says. I ran it though 
google on french and spanish but it didn't change.

Mike



On 23 Dec 2004, at 01:01, Raditha Dissanayake wrote:

> James Hardy wrote:
>
>> And lo; it came to pass that the great prophet, James Hardy spake. 
>> And the huddled masses rejoiced to hear:
>>
>>> As they give away all the code themselves and a copy of the GPL with 
>>> it, they seem to be in full compliance
>>
>>
>> Ok, just read Andre's post, it looks like they are in violation with 
>> their clause about not modifiying without permission, so they are 
>> legally in the wrong.
>>
>> IANAL, but I believe that if they are in violation of the GPL their 
>> license is revoked and by continuing to publish it they would be in 
>> violation of the copyright and could therefore be sued. I suppose 
>> this depends on if Brazil are party to the Berne convention or other 
>> such stuff.
>>
> Releasing code under GPL does not mean you are giving up your 
> copyright. Releasing code under GPL merely gives the others the right 
> to redistribute your code. The copyright still belongs to the original 
> author. Contributers may claim copyright on the sections that they 
> have contributed. But no one can replace the copyright notices.
>
> I am not a lawyer either, just an open source developer.
>
>> James
>>
>
>
> -- 
> Raditha Dissanayake.
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