Re: [LAD] GPL Violation Alert! - update

On Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 11:02 AM, Steve Harris<steve@email-addr-hidden> wrote:
> An update.
>
> I've been contacted by the company that sells this software, asking
> for retrospective permission, or something along those lines.
>
> I'm not going to grant it - I don't really think I can, the "SWH"
> plugins represent the work of far too many people for me to feel
> comfortable doing that, and it's not necessary anyway, as long as they
> stick by whatever the conditions of the licence may be. But, I don't
> actually have a clear idea of what the GPL says should happen.
>
> Consensus seems to be that they need to distribute code for the
> plugins they include, but whether they are allowed to ship the plugins
> is another question.
>
> The crazy thing is that if they shipped their host in one package, and
> redistributed some LADPSA plugins (with source) in another then they
> would not be violating the licence as far as I can see - both actions
> are perfectly legitimate in isolation. However, shipping them in one
> package might be some sort of violation.
>
> That's slightly mad.

I also got mail from the president of BeatKangz. I basically replied
that they have two possibilities:

(1) abide by the GPL;

(2) buy a custom commercial license from me (since I believe I am the
copyright holder for all my plugins, I can rightfully do this).

Re: the madness surrounding the GPL, I think the dividing line (as per
the "spirit" and not necessarily by the "letter" of the GPL) is
whether the incorporated work (the plugins) form an integral part of
the whole. I believe that if the host relies on some plugins for some
critical operation (eg. think JAMin) then with all due respect, the
virality of the GPL applies. However if the user initiates loading a
plugin then it should not enforce any restriction on the host ("taint"
it). I believe our case is an example of the former case. Even so
since on their website BeanKangz brags about FX features in their
product (integral part) without referencing that they are just
standard plugins downloadable from the 'net.

Tom
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Received on Mon Aug 10 20:15:10 2009