| > If the third party sold a copy of MS Windows using Square's services/software/platform, could Square even in theory be sued by Microsoft for copyright infringement? If Square was knowingly engaged in the distribution of Microsoft's software against Microsoft's license terms, absolutely. (EDIT: Well, I'm assuming they're helping distribute it, might be "conspiracy to commit copyright infringement" otherwise?) > So AGPL isn't something special. Correct...ish. I'm sure piracy, if not explicitly against the ToS, will get you kicked off too. The closest the AGPL gets to being special is the nebulous situation we find debated throughout this HN discussion tree - is it legal for Square to distribute? It's reasonable that customers might think so. It's reasonable that square's lawyers might think not. But you've pointed out that even that isn't unique to the AGPLv3 specifically - so why call it out, specifically? My wild uneducated guess - a customer used AGPLv3 software, Square became aware of it somehow (license review team? or perhaps someone tried to exercise AGPLv3 rights and requested server code?), and eventually involves their Lawyer. Lawyer then looks into the specific case of their customer using specific software, reads the license of said software (AGPLv3), and becomes nervous about Square's possible legal exposure. After the awkward conversation with their customer (possibly much like the discussion in this HN thread as to if Square would/wouldn't be knowingly facilitating AGPLv3 license violations by not sharing their own code, and thus legally liable), Square settles the matter by banning the specific license outright, possibly after giving them a chance to move away from AGPLv3 software first since it wasn't strictly against the ToS, and then explicitly adds it to the ban list for the benifit of customers and customer service who probably weren't privy to whatever lengthy private discussions might've been had with that one specific customer. |