I'm not a legal expert to be fair, but it would definitely be the bare legal requirement, though them lying about it is probably what will get them in bigger trouble.

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kbelder 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

They'll definitely be required to either add the attribution or stop using the code.

There can be punitive fines for copyright violation, moreso if the copyright is registered. I think there's some leeway there for the court.

There also may be damages. In the case of, for instance, illegal distribution of a Disney movie, Disney may be entitled to the amount of sales they supposedly lost.

It makes me think that open-source projects should routinely offer their product for sale, without the attribution requirements. Then, if another company violates their license, they have a tangible dollar figure they can point to and say exactly how much revenue was stolen.

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dmitrygr 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I encourage you to try selling copies of some Disney movies and Nintendo game rips on your website, representing them as your own work, and when they notice, to offer to "just delete them".

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giancarlostoro 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This is beyond what we're talking about though, you're referring to copyright infringement. I'm referring to an open source licensed software that ALLOWS commercial use, the only requirement is attribution.

Your example only makes sense if the company stole the code from a proprietary repo, like a hostile former employee.

	▲	dmitrygr 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		All copyleft licenses are built on top of copyright law. That is their one and only enforcement strategy, by design. So we are in fact talking about the very same thing. Here, read: https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2012/feb/01/gpl-enforcement/#...

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Dylan16807 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

That analogy only works if there was a place you could signup for free to allow you to host and sell those files.

As-is, it's so far off it's useless. Even though both situations involve copyright in some manner.

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dmitrygr 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I again point out that ALL copyleft licenses are built on copyright, so my example is perfectly valid - one way or another it is copyright infringement,

https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2012/feb/01/gpl-enforcement/#...

	▲	Dylan16807 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		What am I supposed to say here. I already acknowledged that and said it's not good enough to make the analogy work. If you repeat that point with no elaboration, you're basically just saying "nuh uh".