

Possibility of Circumventing the GPL for Profit - pkundert

Based on the following discussion:<p>http:&#x2F;&#x2F;redd.it&#x2F;30gbq0<p>Can it be concluded that the GPL can be easily circumvented?
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belorn
1: Individual/Company takes a song that is playing on the radio.

2: Individual makes crude and lossy recording of the song.

3: Individual now considers the recording as significant changed from the
original, and starts selling CD's with the recording.

4: And the story ends, and the individual get sued. A crude and ugly
conversion, be that from radio to mp3, painting to photo, text-to-audio
version of a book and so on is all _transformations_ , which the copyright
owner has exclusive right to.

The reddit comment also says this, so I am not where the "easily circumvented"
conclusion is derived from. The people in charge of this company risk huge
fines and prison time, as with any for-profit infringement of copyright.

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dozzie
Why? One does not even need to make any wrappers over the library and still
sell the library for use, as long as it is clearly stated it's GPL code and
where it can be obtained in the source form. This is the way GPL was supposed
to work.

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nunobrito
Sure, go ahead with this approach. Now ask yourself, why aren't other
enterprises as commercially savvy as you and haven't got around to explore
this route? :-)

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dozzie
I'm not saying that this is feasible to build a company around this scheme
(but it seems to be occasionally, with Red Hat being prime example). I'm just
saying it's possible to sell GPL code written by others.

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nunobrito
That is not circumvention, it is misappropriation. If the copyright holder
gets upset enough, it will lead to a court case.

