Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
I admire your principles, Tommy, but it does seem fairly clear that Bookeen licenced the hardware design and its GPL'd software in good faith. It's not they who are in violation of the GPL, but the company they got it from, who I'd guess are somewhere in China - not a country noted for its rigid enforcement of copyright law, unfortunately  . |
They may have done this in good faith, but if so then they are badly incompetent. By now everybody in the hardware/software business ought to know that Linux is GPL'ed, and that this comes along with legal requirements. IANAL, but I think that as soon as they found that they were violating Linux copyright, they legally should have stopped distribution. It is a copyright infringement to distribute copyrighted materials beyond fair use (and other exemptions) without a license. I think one can't distribute copyrighted materials beyond fair use without a license while trying to negotiate a license, or trying to comply with the license, etc.: one needs to have complied with a license first.
Tommy is right that one can't in good conscience re-sell one's Gen3 in a case like this. I think one can in good conscience use it, however, since GPL does not restrict usage, only distribution.
All that said, Bookeen is in a very difficult position: it seems to me that doing the legally right thing would require them to immediately withdraw the device from circulation, and perhaps even offer to refund money to all purchasers, while informing them that the device they purchased is not legally resellable. This would presumably spell the end of the company. While that may be what the letter of the law would require, it seems not unreasonable to suppose that the FSF and other copyright owners would be willing to let them have some time to try to extract source code from their supplier.