Software Freedom Conservancy Receives Court Ruling Affirming GPL as Both Copyright License and Contractual Agreement
The Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC), a non-profit that provides infrastructure support for free and open source software projects, has received a favorable ruling in its right-to-repair lawsuit against Vizio, an American TV manufacturer. The SFC alleges that Vizio has demonstrated “repeated failures to fulfill even the basic requirements of the General Public License (GPL),” after the company refused to provide the source code for software with copyleft licenses that it bundles with its products. Vizio had filed a request to “remove” the case from California State Court into U.S. Federal Court. After hearing oral arguments from both sides, the court has granted SFC’s motion to remand the case back to California State Court. In the ruling, US District Court judge Josephine L. Staton stated that the GPL introduces “an additional contractual promise separate and distinct from any rights provided by the copyright laws:” The Court finds Versata’s reasoning persuasive, and it finds here, as the courtfound there, that the enforcement of “an additional contractual promise separate and distinct from any rights provided by the copyright laws” amounts to an “extra element,” and therefore, SFC’s claims are not preempted. Id. at *5. There is an extra element to SFC’s claims because SFC…
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