Comment by gpm
1 day ago
Here's an appeal to the law, the doctrine of copyright exhaustion (also known as the first sale doctrine) dictates that copyright is exhausted upon the first sale of the device (i.e. to the distributor) and they have no rights to control or prevent further sales.
That the GPL potentially fails to achieve what it intends to is neither a legal argument, nor particularly surprising.
Wouldn't that imply that end-user license agreements are all unenforceable because the software was sold through a retailer, and even if it wasn't you could just a get a secondhand copy?
By my understanding EULAs are based on contract law and having a clickwrap agreement that requires you agree to it before using the software, not copyright law. Except perhaps to the extent that copyright law would prevent you from creating a derivative work that doesn't require you to agree to that clickwrap agreement prior to using the software.
How does that solve it? Alice buys the software, clicks "agree" so that it runs and then sells it to Bob who uses it without ever agreeing.
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So too is the GPL a contract, or at least nobody has proven that it is not a contract and the SFC will fight to prove that it is
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Distribution agreement is generally different from a sale. Distributors act as agents of the manufacturer. It’s not yet counted as a sale. Most warranties are limited to first owner and do not transfer. How do you think this squares with that? Does it mean I don’t get warranty on the dishwasher I got from Costco? It’s also the same principle of a distributor acting as an agent that enables the manufacturer to have a contract with you.
> first sale doctrine) dictates that copyright is exhausted upon the first sale of the device (i.e. to the distributor).
The copyright doesn’t go away when copies are sold to a distributor. Someone (probably the manufacturer) still has legal obligations to the copyright holder.
copyright doesn't give you the kind of rights that a GPL license does - which is not based on copyright, but on contract law (ala, it's in the name - licenses).
A sale of an object does not transfer those licenses (but those licenses are still valid on the seller - a manufacturer selling widgets will have to obey the GPL clauses. If an end user of this widget wants the source code, they have to go back all the way to the manufacturer, rather than any of the middle-men presumably).
With regards to further distribution of the copy sold to the distributor, it does go away.