| The problem is before the contract even gets a chance to be applicable. If the data is there, I can just take and copy it. In fact, in order to display the data in my browser, multiple copies have already ben made. The only reason that there's a limit to what I am allowed to do with that data, vs. what I can do with that data, is copyright. So if the data is protected under copyright, you can limit my copying and, for example, require me to agree to a contract in order that I may be allowed to copy it (and thus use it). However, if the data is not protected under copyright, there is nothing stopping me from doing all the things to the data that I can, and so I can just ignore the contract you would like me to agree to. > Contracts like the GPL and Openstreetmap are not (only) about copyright. But they are based on copyright. Without copyright protection, nobody needs to enter into that contract. > License is a US legal concept that doesn't exist in Europe. This is not true. https://www.brennecke-rechtsanwaelte.de/Lizenzrecht-eine-Ein... |
There is a possible strategy where you try to say that the data cannot be subject to copyright and you try to void the contract. You understand that. I think that's what you're talking about?
I am trying to tell you that there is a good chance that this strategy doesn't work. You're not gonna manage to void the contract like that.
The first case just passed in appeal court in France on the GPL. The court pretty much dismissed all copyright claims, they decided it's a contractual matter because there is a contract, the contract takes precedence over all copyright claims. (In the end they got some damages for "parasitism", it's a thing in French law where a company is profiting from work/investments taken by another company.)
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitisme_(droit)
> This is not true. https://www.brennecke-rechtsanwaelte.de/Lizenzrecht-eine-Ein...
Further clarifications then. In the US there are licenses and contracts, which are two separate fields of law.
In the EU (in France at least which I am more familiar) there are only contracts.
If you want to allow somebody to manufacture and sell some paintings for you (for example), you can draft a contract to allow them to do that. The contract could be called a licensing contract or a distribution contract. It's a regular contract, it's not a separate thing.
This causes a lot of confusion for US readers because they hear about licenses in EU and think it's the same as in the US but it isn't. That type of license is a contract governed by contract law. There is no separate license law like in the US.
My German is not good enough to comprehend all of that. It seems your link is talking about drafting contract for specific purposes (license to manufacture, license to distribute, license to use). It doesn't say that licenses aren't contracts.