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Comment by lmm

7 years ago

Two wrongs don't make a right. The way the GPL works is: you are given permission to redistribute someone's copyrighted work provided you comply with particular conditions (such as providing similar permission to your end users). If you don't stay within those conditions, then you're violating that person's copyright (you're redistributing their work without permission) and they can sue you. But that doesn't mean that I can distribute your work without permission, any more than you assaulting my neighbour means that I'm allowed to assault you.

Now the makers of this game and the copyright holder for the GPL work might end up reaching a settlement where the game engine is released under the GPL. (I know of one case of this happening: a Japanese visual novel producer, Leaf, released their engine as used in several games e.g. Kusari . As a result of this there's an open-source engine that you can use to play those games on linux). Equally they might end up reaching a different settlement that involves e.g. withdrawing the game from distribution (this happened with the Wii ports of some classic SCUMM games - they used ScummVM in violation of its license, but could not release their code under the GPL without violating the conditions of the Nintendo API they were using).

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lmm

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zucker42  7 years ago

As a note, the FSF says on their website that their primary goal in any GPL litigation is to get the company to release the source under the GPL.

  • lmm  7 years ago

    True, and in practice most copyright holders who release their work under the GPL feel similarly. However, in general a copyright holder is under no obligation to accept such a settlement, and in principle if you distribute GPLed work without conforming to the GPL terms then you are liable for statutory damages (in the US, $50k for accidental infringement and $150k for wilful infringement, per act of infringement) just like for any other act of copyright infringement.