Policy Department C: Citizens' Rights and
Constitutional Affairs
____________________________________________________________________________________________
28
11. Information to the public
In case of any Distribution and/or Communication of the Work by means of electronic
communication by You (for example, by offering to download the Work from a remote
location) the distribution channel or media (for example, a website) must at least provide
to the public the information requested by the applicable law regarding the Licensor, the
Licence and the way it may be accessible, concluded, stored and reproduced by the
Licensee.
12. Termination of the Licence
The Licence and the rights granted hereunder will terminate automatically upon
any breach
by the Licensee of the terms of the Licence.
Such a termination will not terminate the licences of any person who has received the Work
from the Licensee under the Licence, provided such persons remain in full compliance with
the Licence.
13. Miscellaneous
Without prejudice of Article 9 above, the Licence represents the complete agreement
between the Parties as to the Work.
If any provision of the Licence is invalid or unenforceable under applicable law, this will not
affect the validity or enforceability of the Licence as a whole. Such
provision will be
construed and/or reformed so as necessary to make it valid and enforceable.
The European Commission may publish other linguistic versions and/or new versions of this
Licence and/or updated versions of the Appendix, so far this is required and reasonable,
without reducing the scope of the rights granted by the Licence. New versions of the
Licence will be published with a unique version number.
All linguistic versions of this Licence, approved by the European Commission, have identical
value. Parties can take advantage of the linguistic version of their choice.
14. Jurisdiction
Without prejudice to specific agreement between parties,
-
any litigation resulting from the interpretation of this License, arising between the
European
Union institutions, bodies, offices or agencies
, as a Licensor, and any
Licensee, will be subject to the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the European
Union, as laid down in article 272 of the Treaty on the Functioning
of the European
Union,
-
any litigation arising between other parties and resulting from the interpretation of this
License, will be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the competent court where the
Licensor resides or conducts its primary business.
15. Applicable Law
Without prejudice to specific agreement between parties,
-
this Licence shall be governed by the law of the European Union Member State where
the Licensor has his seat, resides or has his registered office,
-
this licence shall be governed by Belgian law if the
Licensor has no seat, residence or
registered office inside a European Union Member State.
Policy Department C: Citizens' Rights and Constitutional Affairs
____________________________________________________________________________________________
30
A discussion of the different software licensing regimes
Avv. Carlo Piana, Lawyer
ABSTRACT
Free
Software, or Open Source Software, is ubiquitous. Having a minority share in
consumer Personal Computer software, it has the lion's share in virtually all other markets
like smartphones, Internet appliances, and cloud services. This work provides an outline of
the legal aspects of Free Software, explaining how this licensing model can prosper while
subverting a legal environment conceived to achieve its opposite.
It also outlines how
different legislations can be detrimental to it (mainly, by extending patent protection to
software).
CONTENT
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
30
1.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
32
2.
COYPRIGHT, COPYLEFT, COPY-WHAT? A NEW FAMILY OF LICENSES 35
3.
SAME LICENSE, MANY “BUSINESS MODELS”
39
4.
ARE FREE SOFTWARE LICENSES VALID? WHAT MAKES THEM
ENFORCEABLE? 42
5.
INTERACTION WITH OTHER “IP” RIGHTS
44
6.
THE CLOUD
47
REFERENCES
49
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Free Software,
38
also known, or perhaps best known, as “Open Source Software”, is any
kind of Software that, by being
distributed under a Free Software License, benefits from
the
Four Freedoms:
Freedom #0 to use the software for any purpose;
Freedom #1 to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as
you wish (Access to the source code is a precondition for this);
Freedom #2 to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbour;
38 “Free” in “Free Software” has meaning as in “Freedom of speech”, it does not relate to price (as in “Free
Beer”), rather on being unrestricted. This is why, to avoid the ambiguity that the word “free” has in current
English, it is frequently referred to as Free/Libre Software. “Open Source”, conversely, is a more common way
(although more recently coined) of referring to Free Software. Sometimes these naming conventions are mixed
together, such as in “Free and Open Source Software” (FOSS) or even “Free/Libre and Open Source Software”
(FLOSS). I use Free Software in the remainder of this work.