Writing in NLJ this week, Paul Schwartfeger of 36 Stone examines the reach of ‘copyleft’ licences and unresolved questions about their enforcement under English law.
Some licences require distributed works based on open-source code to carry equivalent permissions, potentially allowing recipients to copy, modify and redistribute software. Whether those requirements extend to a separate proprietary program depends on the licence and the relationship between the programs.
English copyright law offers no simple boundary rule. Questions also remain over whether downstream users can enforce licensing obligations through third-party contractual rights.
Litigation in California involving Vizio televisions could offer persuasive reasoning, although it would not bind English courts.
With applications assembled from complex dependencies, businesses must establish what their software contains, where it originated and what obligations follow before litigation or investor scrutiny.
