UK Government Confiscates Firefox CDs

Alsee writes "The idea that Free Software can be sold has some government officials perplexed. Times Online has the story. A UK Trading Standards officer contacted the Mozilla Foundation to report catching a business selling copies of Firefox. The organization confiscated the CDs with the intent to prosecute said business. When informed that such distribution was authorized, the officer first expressed disbelief that Free Software could be sold then said 'If Mozilla permit the sale of copied versions of its software, it makes it virtually impossible for us, from a practical point of view, to enforce UK anti-piracy legislation'."

Licenses

[eldavojohn]

Some of the licenses allow for people to charge for distributing the software. After all, they burned it to a disc and probably did all the labeling. You're paying for nothing more than the time and resources that went into this. Is it wrong to charge $10 per CD with Mozilla on it? Probably, but I don't think it's illegal. You simply have to disclose that there is no warranty and state that the software falls under the MPL [mozilla.org].

As Section 3.5 states:

You must duplicate the notice in Exhibit A in each file of the Source Code. If it is not possible to put such notice in a particular Source Code file due to its structure, then You must include such notice in a location (such as a relevant directory) where a user would be likely to look for such a notice. If You created one or more Modification(s) You may add your name as a Contributor to the notice described in Exhibit A. You must also duplicate this License in any documentation for the Source Code where You describe recipients' rights or ownership rights relating to Covered Code. You may choose to offer, and to charge a fee for, warranty, support, indemnity or liability obligations to one or more recipients of Covered Code. However, You may do so only on Your own behalf, and not on behalf of the Initial Developer or any Contributor. You must make it absolutely clear than any such warranty, support, indemnity or liability obligation is offered by You alone, and You hereby agree to indemnify the Initial Developer and every Contributor for any liability incurred by the Initial Developer or such Contributor as a result of warranty, support, indemnity or liability terms You offer.

Do not confuse the MPL with the GPL, folks.

'If Mozilla permit the sale of copied versions of its software, it makes it virtually impossible for us, from a practical point of view, to enforce UK anti-piracy legislation.'

Well, Mozilla falls under the MPL. I'm not sure any other software falls under this license. For that reason, anyone distributing software that falls under other licenses should be investigated. I'm not sure how people distributing Mozilla legally at a charge prohibits you from arresting people who are distributing copyrighted software which they made their own copies of.

submitter: RTFA

[l2718]

The blurb is highly misleading. No CDs were confiscated. Rather, the officer did the right thing: upon uncountering the "suspicious" distributor, he first contacted the copyright owner (the Mozilla Foundation) to ask what gives. In particular, no confiscated CDs had to be returned.

As another poster above points out, the Trading Standards Office should have been able to figure this out by reading the license, but you cannot fault them for going to the people who licensed the software initialy.

Re:Licenses

[Anonymous Coward]

You can charge for GPL'd software also. The important thing is the freedom to review and edit the way the program works, not the fact that GPL software is TYPICALLY, BUT NOT ALWAYS, distributed for free.

In that respect, it's no different than the MPL or the multitude of similar open source licenses ou there.

At least she followed procedure

[spiritraveller]

They had encountered businesses which were selling copies of Firefox, and wanted to confirm that this was in violation of our licence agreements before taking action against them.

At least she tried to confirm this before running out to arrest people. She may not understand WHY she has to confirm a violation of the licensing agreement... but the fact that she followed the procedure indicates that we aren't all about to be raided for having "pirated" copies of Firefox on our computers.

There is certainly no shortage of dense people in the world. But that's why we have procedures... we say "do this! this way!" And they do... even if it makes them incredulous. Bravo standards-bearers! Bravo.

Re:Licenses

[albalbo]

You can, so long as it's the original. If you modify the software, you have to rebuild it without the branding, unless you have MoFo's permission.

Re:Licenses

[drakaan]

The IANAL comment saves you on this one. Trademark prevents another company making another product from confusing customers by using your mark.

If they were distributing a different browser and calling it Mozilla or Firefox then they'd run afoul of trademark law. What's at issue here is copyright, which is added to by the MPL that explicitly allows for copying.

The fact that the cops can't comprehend what's allowed via the MPL is humorous, as is their failure to understand how it relates to copyright with no additional permissive license.

RMS will be delighted

[91degrees]

Bet he wasn't expected Free software to have this direct an effect.

Re:"If your software's free...

[harrkev]

Simple -- by modifying it, distributing it, and NOT giving away the source code.

People have gotten in trouble for doing exactly this.

Re:eBay also did/does this to some extent

[ivan256]

People sell burnt copies of stuff all the time on Ebay. They explain it in the body what it is and how it is a backup and should only be used as such.

Yeah, now... Back then they were worried about getting sued out of their small business existance. Now they're worried about collecting as many listing, upgrade, and closing fees on every stupid-assed fraudulent, mis-categorized, or questionable item listing they can get people to pay for. They only pull auctions of burned things if it's from a company that can afford more lawyers than them now.... Essentially, they only pull pirated Microsoft stuff.

Re:submitter: RTFA

[leuk_he]

Well, reading the licence on the cd should not believed. Hypothacally I would be able to create a cd containing Oracle and stamp a gpl licence notification on it. Am i allowed to distribute it then.I do not think so. So the lady was correct.

The other way arround happens also by the way. Some gpl software gets retagged by someone who thinks he can getaway with it. You cannot sell that one because you do not have a valid licence for the software. (even if you say you have. )

Re:What they mean to say is....

[sepluv]

Yep, I know that. I assumed that the /. editors had some new information on this story as they stated that in the headline, but they're just being their normal incompetent selves.

Re:This kind of logic...

[Otto]

Well, I would argue that they shouldn't be enforcing this sort of thing in the first place, but if they're going to be expected to enforce it, then yes, I agree that they need training and such on enforcing it properly.

Re:Licenses

[Anonymous Coward]

The Great British have different Trademark law, and I think because they are much smaller geographically than the US (and have fewer businesses) they don't allow confusingly similar business names even across different industries.

I think thats part of why Apple Records Vs. Apple Computer was such a big hubbub, they sued in the UK multiple times, under UK law which gives more rights to Apple to protect their Trademark. In the US Acme Auto Parts is going to have a hard time suing Acme Clothes Pins (unless they steal their logo or something).

not cops

[stewwy]

just a quick note to our atlantic cousins, and other non-uk readers. These officials are NOT cops, they are government officials in the same way as traffic wardens and council rent officers. They have no powers other than those related to specific sets of circumstances, for example a traffic warden cannot, as far as I know, arrest someone for murder. Like all public officials 'jobsworth's ', and rules followers often gravitate to these posts and they constantly seek to widen their areas of influence. Their habit of pronouncing on things they're ignorant about seems to be on the increase and is often given more prominence than it deserves. So responce to the article should be: nothing to see, move along....

Re:Licenses

[pthisis]

"IANAL but I don't think you can go around selling Mozilla-branded items without permission from the Mozilla folks."

This seems to be an accurate view of the law.

It seems technically accurate, but it's somewhat misleading in this case since Mozilla has granted blanket permission for the trademark to be used when distributing unaltered copies of their software.

http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/trademarks/polic y.html [mozilla.org]

Re:Licenses

[DrSkwid]

try turning your cache off, it's a feature not a memory leak

viewed pages are stored in memory for quick viewing later