In a landmark decision, the US federal appeals court has decided that conditions of an open source software licence are enforceable under copyright law.
Open source software is made publicly available for anyone to use, change and improve, provided firstly that the changes are made available to others, and secondly, that the creator of the work is acknowledged and any alterations to the software are highlighted. The software is used through an open source licence allowing free distribution of the software, while retaining an element of control for the creator.
Open source software is used by millions of people, from internet use to email accounts and through software such as linux and mozilla. This is seen as an alternative to copyright, and has become known as copyleft.
In this milestone US decision, it was decided that a breach of an open source licence was copyright infringement. A software developer created a program for model trains which was released for use by model train users, subject to the terms of a licence, artistic license 1.0. The program was then used by a train set software development company to create software, without adhering to the above conditions.
The developer claimed that the conditions of the artistic license had been breached and that his copyright had been infringed. An initial decision by the district court said that although the terms of the licence had not been met, it was a breach of contract, and not copyright infringement. The developer subsequently appealed and the court of appeal, overturning this decision, ruled that the developer's copyright had been infringed and rejected the argument that the creator's copyright is not infringed unless money changes hands for use of the software.
Although future copyleft cases would be assessed on their own merits, this decision has wide ranging effects for both creators and users of open source software. It allows users to continue to use the software within the terms of the licence, however, if the terms of the licence are breached, creators have a remedy as their copyright has been infringed.
The decision has been welcomed in the US, and further developments in both the uk and us are eagerly awaited.
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