Templates for letters to vendors

[Ole Tange]

On Mon, Mar 2, 2009 at 1:07 AM, Graeme West <west at fsfeurope.org> wrote:
> Dear Ole, Ian and all,
>
> On Sunday 01 March 2009 02:58:43 Ole Tange wrote:
>> >> Here are my draft for hardware. Please help improving it.
>> >>
>> >> http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=df65rjng_124czmbptgp&invite=g2tnvfw
>
> ...
> While I think the general idea of giving people the tools to contact vendors
> about incompliant behaviour is a good thing - and I applaud your efforts - I
> have to say that some sections of the suggested letter exhibit a tone, and
> contain content, which is not very helpful. Because of this, in its present
> form, it will have the effect of hindering rather than helping the achievement
> of license compliance.
>
> This is for two reasons.
> 1. It looks (and some of it reads) like a cease-and-desist or other legal
> demand, and for this reason may have unintended consequences for both you and
> the vendor.
> 2. It contains threatening language in some sections.
>
>
> Let me explain.
>
> 1.
> In most jurisdictions that I'm aware of, only copyright holders may send a
> cease and desist, and they should only do so in consultation with a qualified
> lawyer. This looks like a cease and desist, and so we shouldn't be
> encouraging people to use it as a template.
>
> This passage:
>>If I have your answer within 14 days, I will not contact THE AUTHORS
>>about this possible infringement of their copyright.
> ...is a problem. It's a threat. If you send a letter like this, the vendor
> will send it straight to their legal counsel, and you'll find yourself
> negotiating with a lawyer rather than helping the company understand
> compliance.

If you read http://www.gpl-violations.org/faq/legal-faq.html you will
see, that gpl-violations.org tried using email and faxes, and that
these in almost all cases were ignored.

Personally I would prefer dealing with the legal department than with
the first line support; primarily because the legal department usually
has the power to raise the issue with management - where as first line
support may not even understand the issue and refuse me getting
through to second line support. Also I would much rather teach
compliance to the legal department than first line support.

> It's also pretty meaningless. If they get back to you within fourteen days
> with a letter from their legal counsel, as a non-copyright holder, your
> options are very limited. You can't enforce other people's rights.

The idea is to let them know that ignoring the request will not make
it go away, but will instead escalate it.

But I do see you have a valid point. No need to confuse the matter
more than necessary.

>>This is to avoid damages in a
>>potential lawsuit: Continued willful infringement is usually punished
>>harder than accidental first time infringement.
> This sounds like a statement of law ('wilful infringement'), which:
>   a) may not apply, given jurisdictional differences
>   b) the reporter is probably not qualified to make
>   c) is not constructive in explaining how to achieve compliance. Again, tone
> is important.

I have re-toned the letter. Help making the tone even better.

> In other words, the letter should say:
>
> "I bought product X from vendor Y. Product X appears to contain a copy of
> Project Y. Project Y is available from [site] and is distributed under
> [license], which requires [basic outline of potentially breached requirement].
> This requirement does not appear to have been fulfilled in the case of Product
> X.
>
> I would be grateful if you could clarify whether Product X is in compliance
> with Project Y's license terms. In the event that this is not the case, I
> would welcome steps toward resolution of this matter.
>
> Regards,
> John Doe"

Can you let us know what your next step will be, when you get either
no reply or a canned reply from first line support (who barely knows
where to download the drivers for the company's product - and knows
absolutely nothing about copyright)?

> Because the only purpose of this type of communication is to communicate the
> facts of the case as you see them, it might be that a template is unnecessary.

I believe you are wrong here. I do not think people who do not
regularly report GPL violations would do so without being somewhat
pissed off. I believe there is a real risk that these people will
rather send a flame-mail than send a polite request. Therefore it may
be productive to give these people a template that avoids the flame
mail.

To me the goal is to make a template that makes it easier for the
non-compliant companies to become compliant, but the burden should be
put on the companies - neither on the reporter nor on the GPL'ed
projects in question.

> Also, before reporting anything to a vendor, you should probably also contact
> the project concerned to see if they are already aware of the potential
> violation.

This would put burden on the GPL'ed project. To me that would be
counter productive. One of the reasons is that the company may be
almost compliant. One of the reasons could be that the source code is
available, but just very hard to find.

I do not see any reason to burden the copyright holder before it is
clear, that the company is non-compliant and has no intention of doing
anything about it.


/Ole

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=df65rjng_125hsnv86hf&invite=hff58s9
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=df65rjng_124czmbptgp&invite=g2tnvfw