Recently, Beijing Jijia Law Firm represented the plaintiff Digital Paradise (Beijing) Network Technology Co., Ltd. and won the case against the defendants, Youzi (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd. and Youzi (Beijing) Mobile Technology Co., Ltd., in the computer software copyright infringement case: The first instance of the Beijing Intellectual Property Court found that the two defendants’ infringement was established and should bear legal responsibility, including: apologizing to the plaintiff in a prominent position on the defendant’s official website and WeChat public account, eliminating the impact, paying damages and reasonable expenses of 1,654,000 Eight hundred yuan.
This case is different from general computer software copyright infringement cases in that it involves the defense of the open source software agreement ("GNU General Announcement License Agreement", GPL V3). As the important influence of open source protocols in the process of computer software development has become increasingly prominent, the court's distribution of burden of proof, fact-finding and legal analysis ideas during the trial of this case has high reference value for the trial practice of similar cases on the one hand, and has a high reference value for domestic trial practice. How developers legally use open source resources and how to reasonably maintain the rights of self-developed software also have important guiding significance.
Brief introduction to the case
The plaintiff claimed that the two defendants published the software named APICloud through their official website, and copied three plug-ins in the copyrighted HBuilder development tool software (the code input method function plug-in, the real machine running function plug-in, the modification and viewing function plug-in). ) source code. The acts of the two defendants infringed upon the rights of reproduction, modification and information network dissemination enjoyed by the plaintiff with respect to HBuilder software.
The two defendants argued that the plaintiff's HBuilder software was an open source software branch under the GPL agreement, and the defendant had the right to use its code and build derivative software products under the authorization of the GPL agreement, without the plaintiff's permission, and the defendant's actions did not infringe the plaintiff's copyright.
The Beijing Intellectual Property Court held that :
1. The three plug-ins of the plaintiff are independent computer software works, and the plaintiff enjoys the copyright of them
The code input method function plug-in, the real machine running function plug-in, and the modification and viewing function plug-in are included in the HBuilder software involved in the case, but they can all run independently . Therefore, it is an independent computer software work, and the plaintiff enjoys the copyright and has the right to prohibit others from using the software work in the manner specified in Article 10 of the Copyright Law.
2. The behavior of the second defendant constitutes duplication and modification of the plaintiff's software, and infringes upon the plaintiff's right of information network dissemination
After identifying the identity of the source code of the accused infringing software and the plaintiff's software , the court found that: 1. Only a small part of the source code of the plaintiff's software is the same as the third-party or open-source software; 2. The accused infringing software copied the plaintiff's software For most of the documents, only a small part of them have been modified, and the above behaviors fall within the protection scope of the plaintiff's right of reproduction and modification. Moreover, the two defendants provided the accused infringing website on their website for users to download, and this behavior fell within the protection scope of the information network communication right.
3. The plaintiff's software is not a derivative product or revision of the open source under the GPL agreement, and the defendant's defense is untenable
First, the three plug-ins of the plaintiff are all in separate folders, and there is no GPL open source license file in this folder . Second, there is no GPL open source protocol file in the root directory of HBuilder software . Therefore, the three plug-ins are not restricted by the GPL agreement and do not belong to the derivative products or revisions mentioned in the agreement that should be open sourced.
Lawyer's Commentary
The HBuilder provided by the plaintiff in this case is not an .exe installation file, but a .zip package that aggregates common software developed by multiple users. The files involved in this package and their frame structure are shown in the figure below. in:
Eclipse is a Java-based extensible development platform. By itself is just a framework and a set of services for building a development environment through plug-in components. Each plug-in developed for the Eclipse platform is independent software that runs on that platform.
The plaintiff has developed a number of functional plug-ins for Eclipse, the core of which are: code input method, real machine operation, and three independent plug-ins while changing.
Aptana is also a collection of plug-ins developed for Eclipse by third-party Appcelerator companies, individual plug-ins are restricted by the open source license GPL V3.
The defendant claimed that the GPL V3 protocol in the individual plug-ins of Aptana was strictly "infectious", and the plaintiff was infected with the three self-developed plug-ins when they were released into the HBuilder package and must be open sourced. Can this logic hold true?
Returning to the GPL open source agreement itself, as the origin of the free software movement, it emphasizes that developers voluntarily share research and development results through licensing agreements to ensure that open source code is not used by closed sources, rather than grabbing others Tools for R&D results. The setting of the terms of the agreement fully respects the developer's copyright, and it also clearly explains the potentially controversial situations in line with the development of the times to ensure the equality, rationality and validity of the agreement. From the perspective of the GPL agreement, its open source restrictions on subsequent developers' release programs are mainly for a work based on the Program or modifications based on the original program. Combined with the description of the software in the form of "aggregate" in the last part of Article 5 (below), the plaintiff believes that the essence of an open source agreement is the subsequent modification and release of the original program (that is, the downstream software derived from the original program) between developers. It is agreed that it does not impose open source restrictions on upstream software or third-party software without derivatives, nor does it have a factual and legal basis for restricting the latter two.
A compilation of a covered work with other separate and independent works, which are not by their nature extensions of the covered work, and which are not combined with it such as to form a larger program, in or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, is called an “aggregate” if the compilation and its resulting copyright are not used to limit the access or legal rights of the compilation's users beyond what the individual works permit. Inclusion of a covered work in an aggregate does not cause this License to apply to the other parts of the aggregate.
When a protected program is aggregated with other independent programs in the same storage or distribution medium, it may be called an "aggregate", as long as these independent programs are not derived from the protected program in nature, nor does the aggregate form generate a more large programs , and the overall copyright in the aggregate form does not limit aggregate user access and legal rights to individual program licenses. The inclusion of a protected program in an aggregate does not make this license applicable to other programs in the aggregate.
The HBuilder software package in this case includes C code, jre, Eclipse platform framework, Aptana plug-in, the plaintiff's self-developed plug-in and other third-party plug-ins (which can be easily obtained from the Eclipse software market). According to the logic of the defendant's "comprehensive infection", as long as it is aggregated with the open source software under the GPL agreement in the same software package, not only the plaintiff's three plug-ins, but also the Eclipse platform framework and third-party plug-ins need to be open source - then as long as the known Commercial software is packaged and released with any GPL open source code, and there is no open source software in the world.
In fact, different from the traditional one software corresponding to one license, in the current market environment, more software - especially software using open source code - are mostly released in the form of software aggregates, that is, the software package is not separate , a complete program, but an "aggregate" similar to the plaintiff's software package that involves many independent software, and all the independent software in the "aggregate" have their own separate licenses. Ensuring that these independent software are "not forcibly infected" is not only a respect for the parties' voluntary will, but also the fact that open source software can eliminate developers' concerns about being forced to open source to a certain extent, and is widely adopted, promoted and benefited the public. a foundation.
The judicial determination and the amount of compensation in this case are undoubtedly an important reassurance for innovative developers including the plaintiff, when the chaos of decompilation and plagiarism is emerging: as long as they fully understand in advance during the development process By studying the terms of different open source agreements, choosing open source agreements that meet development expectations and abide by them honestly, you can maintain confidence in effectively safeguarding your own rights and interests, and work hard on the road of independent research and development.
The attached judgment can be viewed in the original text .
From: Open Source Society