Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Federal Circuit: Open-source licenses have teeth

In a very important ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, finding that the terms of an Artistic License (a form of open source license) are "enforceably copyright conditions" has vacated a denial of a preliminary injunction and remanded the case for re-consideration consistent with its finding.  This means that, where there is an underlying copyright, the terms of an open-source license are governed by copyright law.  Exceeding the terms of such a license can constitute copyright infringement.

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