Can I Distribute This? 33
erikharrison asks: "LormaLinux is one of several emerging desktop oriented Linux distros. It comes prepackaged with the Flash Plugin, Real Player, and Yahoo IM. Is this legal? The Flash EUL agreement does allow free redistribution, but only of the Mac and Windows version, I can't seem to find a EULA for Linux version of Real Player, and can't even find the Linux version of YIM to check for licence issues. Do these distros know something I don't? And if not, am I only going to cause grief if I go to the software OEM and ask for a redistributable licence for my own project?"
Let's hope they have permission... (Score:1)
Re:Let's hope they have permission... (Score:1)
Re:Let's hope they have permission... (Score:2)
Ask !? (Score:3, Insightful)
one wants to include. Much better that way. Makes sense also..
This is why it's a was of time to "Ask Slashdot" (Score:1, Informative)
Jebus! He thought of this already! He's asking for advice before he pursues this because these vendors are known litigous assholes!
Some bonehead will probably mod you up to 5 for feeding something back to the guy he already considered. If you're going to Karma Whore, at least pretent to come up with something original. What benefit have you provided to the person asking the question? No
Re:This is why it's a was of time to "Ask Slashdot (Score:2)
hm ok. None of these 3 companies are suing 12 years old yet AFAIK.
Anyway, these are end-user client software those companies would most likely not mind being distributed, as long as you ask them first.
I somehow don't see Macromedia saying "Well yeah we make that flash player for linux, but we don't want linux users having it pre-installed, that's a bit too easy."
Same goes for the others.
Re:Distribution (Score:4, Insightful)
Because in several jurisdictions, there is explicit legal permission to do so. In any case, did you miss the whole "Home taping is killing music" thing?
2 Copyright isnt even criminal law, its civil. The police dont actually care.
In many jurisdictions, distributing copyrighted material for financial gain (even if it only copies the cost of the media) is criminal.
3 Fair use
Is a mostly US concept. Various parts of the world have no fair use provisions at all.
I think if somethings freely downloadable, its pretty safe to assume its ok to pass it on.
A-ha ha ha. No.
Fair use (Score:3, Insightful)
Additional info on fair use
The "fair use" doctrine likely wouldn's apply regardless. Fair use exceptions don't provide for re-distribution in total, but for excerpted redestribution in support of educational and academic goals. Furthermore, fair use can not apply where it would likely diminish the commercial value of the original work.
As an example, say you were writing a book on cinematography.
Re:Fair use (Score:1)
Nothing you read on Slashdot is legal advice.
Fair use exceptions don't provide for re-distribution in total
"Amount and substantiality" is only one of the four fair use factors. "Effect on the market" tends to count double in actual fair use cases, and it'd be hard for Macromedia or Real to spin this factor in its favor.
You could not, however, redistribute the entire film, or even a substantial portion of it.
Studios will argue that one whole frame out of 130,000 is "substantial."
Re:Fair use (Score:2)
I *think* that (in NZ at least) there is an allowance for how much of a work you are allowed to copy or redistribute without it being 'substantial'
Although, I'd be very pissed off if they would start shutting down sites [vcdquality.com] because of that. I'd have to download the whole thing then!
Flash: no, Real: no, YIM: no (Score:5, Informative)
Check: http://ruslug.rutgers.edu/macromedia/ [rutgers.edu]
" This is the official mirror system of Macromedia Linux packages.
With permission from Macromedia we take their software and package
it in Linux friendly ways (RPM, DEB, ebuild). These packages are
made available for manual download, apt-get, urpmi, or emerge.
Macromedia's EULA forbids repackaging and/or redistribution of
their software so please do not mirror this repository.
Please point your apt-get or urpmi to one of these official
mirrors of this site, as they will be permanent."
Apparently you can either try to ask MM for another exception, or you can make your distribution download the packages from this site. It's maintained by Warren Togami of Fedora.us-fame.
Real Player
You might want to ask the folks at helixsupport.org, and read the licenses over there.
Yahoo IM
When you go to messenger.yahoo.com, click on Unix and check the RPM you see that the license is "proprietary". You can contact them at messenger-unix-support@yahoo-inc.com, maybe they can give you more info.
As for the distributions which include it, like Lycoris, I suppose they've all gotten permission from the authors/owners of this products.
Why Yahoo IM? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why Yahoo IM? (Score:1)
Simple Answer (Score:5, Informative)
Script It? (Score:3, Interesting)
The user will probably never know the difference, and the companies can't complain.
The biggest issue will be a license clickthrough before running the script.
Only for YIM (Score:1)
Downloading packages to each end user's computer would work for Yahoo! IM, but it would not work for Macromedia Flash Player and RealPlayer, both of which can work entirely without connecting to a network, playing media from the local file system.
Re:Script It? (Score:3, Informative)
For example, when installing the JDK on FreeBSD, you are required to manually download and retrieve several files from the sun and freebsd java (patch) sites.
This is because sun forbids binary redistribution (even a script downloading them would be redistribution because the user in basically unaware of a lot of factors), also, it gives them an opportunity to force you to register and provide the information to hunt you down if you break the agreement.
Some common sense... (Score:4, Informative)
1. Unless stated otherwise, you aren't allowed to copy a copyrighted work!
2. But it says copyrighted!
Yes, the right of making copies granted to the author.
And now, you wouldn't blatantly copy a book giving away free copies. Why would you do otherwise with software.
So, unless clearly stated, you can't redistribute any copyrighted work.
A deeper question... (Score:1)
* See the screencap for The Bear, their FTP program, for details.
Re:A deeper question... (Score:2)