FC: Cyberpatrol suit takes GNU twist -- Mattel's victory not one

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

I've put up the first few lines of the cphack utility which explicitly 
releases it under the GPL at:
http://www.politechbot.com/cyberpatrol/cphack-gpl.txt

**********

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,35226,00.html

   Mattel Suit Takes GNU Twist
   by Declan McCullagh (declan () wired com)
   3:00 a.m. Mar. 28, 2000 PST

   BOSTON -- Mattel's claim of victory Monday in a lawsuit over its
   Cyberpatrol filtering software may be premature.

   The toy giant said during a court hearing here that it had acquired
   intellectual property rights to a program that reveals Cyberpatrol's
   secret list of off-limits websites and settled the case. Mattel said
   it planned to use its new copyright in court to ban Internet copying
   of the "cphack" utility.

   But cphack's authors released it under the GNU General Public License,
   which appears to permit unlimited distribution of the original cphack
   program, even if Mattel now owns the copyright.

   "Once you do that you can't revoke it," said Bennett Haselton of
   Peacefire, a group opposed to filtering software that temporarily put
   up its own cphack mirror site.

   The Free Software Foundation's GPL agreement says that "the recipient
   automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy,
   distribute or modify the program."

   Translation: A copyright holder can't change his mind.

   "GPL is software that cannot be revoked," said Eben Moglen, a law
   professor at Columbia University and FSF general counsel. "Anyone
   downstream who possesses a copy of the software may redistribute it.

   "It's a very amusing case," Moglen said. "If people are going to
   respond to free software they don't like by trying to wipe it out,
   they're in for some real trouble."

   A spokeswoman for Mattel reached late Monday said she didn't know what
   the effect of the GPL would be.

   But she said cphack authors Eddy Jansson and Matthew Skala had signed
   a contract with Mattel and if there was any deception, "they'd be in
   big trouble."

   [...]


*********

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,35216,00.html

   Mattel Stays on the Offensive
   by Declan McCullagh (declan () wired com)
   2:45 p.m. Mar. 27, 2000 PST

   BOSTON -- Upping the stakes in a battle over a utility that reveals
   Cyberpatrol's list of off-limits websites, Mattel threatened mirror
   sites with contempt charges during a court hearing Monday afternoon.

   Mattel, which sells Cyberpatrol, said the toy giant had acquired the
   copyright to "cphack" from the two cryptoanalysts who published it on
   their website earlier this month in a settlement agreement signed on
   March 24.

   Citing a March 16 Slashdot thread that said "it's time to mirror!",
   Mattel attorney Irwin Schwartz advised against anyone thinking of
   distributing cphack from now on.

   [...] 

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