[Fedora-legal-list] Forced copyright assignment

[Matt McCutchen]

On Sat, 2011-01-29 at 21:08 -0500, David Nalley wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 29, 2011 at 5:39 PM, Matt McCutchen <matt at mattmccutchen.net> wrote:
> > With all due respect, I don't think so... Assuming the licensor is the
> > sole copyright holder as they say, they have the exclusive right of
> > distribution under copyright law.  They don't need a license to
> > distribute the work however they please.  They are not infringing anyone
> > else's rights, so no one would have any cause to sue them.
> 
> They might have 'cause' but they likely wouldn't have standing, at
> least for a copyright case. One might make the case that's the license
> is truly a contract, and that by not living up to the terms of the
> contract they could be sued (e.g. a simple tort case)

Even so, there is nothing in the "contract" that obliges the licensor to
provide the source.  It is all about what the licensee must do if he/she
distributes or modifies the work.  One could argue that it is implied
that the licensor agrees to provide the source because otherwise the
licensee's right to distribute is impossible to exercise; I don't buy
that, but I may be wrong.

-- 
Matt