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DeCSS is distributed under the GNU GPL. How does this impact the current court cases?

April 26, 2017cases Court DeCSS distributed GNU GPL impact

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DeCSS is distributed under the GNU GPL. How does this impact the current court cases?

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The GNU General Public License, commonly referred to as the GNU GPL, is a software license which grants extra rights to software users, allowing them to copy and modify the software. A growing body of software, including the Linux operating system, is licensed under the GNU GPL. If offering DeCSS to the public is found to be a 1201 violation, then the author has no legal right to distribute it in the U.S., and cannot license others to distribute it, either. Therefore the GPL does not affect the current cases. The GPL can be viewed at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.