F/LOSS has value and is worthy of legal protection

Consortium Info reports that Jacobsen v. Katzer has settled, which means that the findings of fact by the judges involved are not subject to further appeal. Jacobsen wrote Free Software licensed under the GPLv2 for the Java Model Railroad Interface (JMRI) project, which Katzer copied into his proprietary model train software. The court found that this was bad, that Free Software deserved copyright protection and that removing copyright notices on Free Software is bad.

As reported at Consortium Info

1. The code in question was sufficiently original to be entitled to copyright protection. While not unique to F/OSS code, this was a legal issue on which Jacobsen had to prevail in order to assert claims under copyright law.

2. While the JMRI Project made its code available for free, there was "evidence in the record attributing a monetary value for the actual work performed by the contributors to the JMRI project," thus laying the basis for monetary damages.

3. The removal of the copyright and authorship data contained in the pirated code was a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, thus providing a basis for suit for that action in violation of the JMRI license.
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With the case now settled, there can be no further appeals - meaning that the rulings of the District and Appeals courts are now binding in their circuit. Although federal courts in other circuits will not be bound this court's decision, the California circuit is well respected, and other federal judges nationwide will be influenced by its legal conclusions. As a result, the results of the Jacobsen v. Katzer could evenutally become the law of the land.

Toy train engine photo is licensed cc-by-sa by euphro.