Comment by vageli
7 years ago
> That's not how asset sales work. The new copyright owner wouldn't be liable for the previous copyright owner's actions. And if the new copyright owner isn't distributing binaries that include the GPL code they haven't violated the GPL.
Interesting, so even if the new copyright holder profited off of the asset, they wouldn't have to comply with the GPL? This is an interesting parallel to real estate, where the last person holding the bag has to perform environmental cleanup, etc.
The violation is in the distribution. If the current copyright holder distributed copies then he violated the license but more than likely they simply own the copyright to the code and other IP but haven't distributed anything.
So form a company Profit from blatant copyright infringement When the court case eventually comes, wind up the company, move the assets to another company, and you’re quids in
The law does not work like technology and code. A judge would see through that in a heartbeat and go “You thought that would work? You’re kidding, right?”.
2 replies →
Exactly how @teddyh wrote. Make sure you don't tell anyone, don't write it on emails, don't even sleeptalk about this. A judge will get to decide if you were geniunly unknowngly broke some rules, or you are messing with him/her. I will assume that judges don't appreciate being messed around with :)
Not exactly. If you close a company with the intention to avoid legal consequences of your actions only to then spin up another company, there's often some kind of law in place to prevent you from benefiting.
In the UK, these are generally called "phoenix companies" and courts can step in to stop the abuse of limited liability and can apply civil penalties and criminal sanctions to company directors.