Sony Steps up Fight Against PS3 Jailbreaking
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 7th Sep 2010 21:52 UTC
Games I've often harped on Apple for its policy regarding jailbreaking, but of course, Apple isn't the only company engaging in such practices. We already talked about Motorola, and now, we have Sony - already a company with a checkered past when it comes to consumer rights. As it turns out, Sony don't want you jailbreaking your their Playstation 3.
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RE[5]: Ridiculous
by lemur2 on Wed 8th Sep 2010 07:49 UTC in reply to "RE[4]: Ridiculous"
lemur2
Member since:
2007-02-17

This is the interpretation of some. Others, for instance the Free Software Foundation, believe that dynamic linking is creating a derivative work. For this reason, they have created the LGPL (which does allow dynamic linking in proprietary applications, but not static linking).


This might be what the FSF believe, but it is not what copyright law says. Copyright law says that a derived work must include major elements of an earlier copyrighted work. Dynamic linked libraries (the earlier copyrighted work) are NOT present in the as-distributed work (whereas static linked libraries are). Furthermore, it is the act of distribution of code, and not the mere running of code, that the copyleft provisions of the GPL apply to.

If the FSF were to try to mount a case such as you argue in court, I do not see how they could logically prevail.

The FSF have never tried to argue such a case, AFAIK, and all GPL violations that have been argued by the FSF have involved instances where GPL code was in fact being distributed, physically included within larger (proprietary) works. This, and only this, is the no-no that has bite under the law.

Edited 2010-09-08 07:55 UTC

Reply Parent Score: 2