Quote:
Originally Posted by Ortep
And are those laws the same in all countries of the world?
For example: In The Netherlands it is perfectly legal to download music put it on my MP3 player and listen to it. In some countries it is not.
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The point is that the GPL
requires Bookeen to release the Linux source code (never mind the fact that it's bugger all use to anyone!) and they cannot do so because Netronix (the hardware manufacturer) won't give it to them.
It would be interesting to speculate what, if any, "punishment" a court would impose for this transgression, given that it's a civil (not a criminal) offence, and fines in civil cases generally reflect actual financial loss suffered by the copyright holder. In this case, of course, the copyright holder hasn't suffered any financial loss at all (because it's "free" software) and nor has anyone suffered any material loss through not being able to get hold of the source code.
One might ask "does it really matter"?