[derefr]

> You could argue some of the land parcels in question are owned by growing numbers of family members with each new generation, and that therefore it's likely some (even most) owners wouldn't utilize the land.

Interestingly, there's a similar "dilution of ownership" in FOSS projects. Unless the project is operating under one of the nonprofits that foster/require copyright assignment for contribution, the IP of a FOSS project under a license like the GPL is effectively "owned" in part by every individual contributor. But each claim to the copyright of the work as a whole is very, very diluted.

If this petition went through, and the relevant case law were set, one could perhaps claim to be able to freely violate the GPL by creating a derivative commercial work, under the argument that because so many people each own so little of the project, nobody really owns it enough to be able to sue over it. (After all, nobody owns enough to be able to do other things requiring majority-ownership, like relicensing the project!)

[belovedeagle]

The article makes it clear that this is standard procedure in Hawaii. No new case law is being created.