Federal Circuit Holds That Open Source Code Licensors Are Entitled to Copyright Protection Governing Use of Code

Holding:

In a cutting edge case involving open source programming code licensing, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that distributors of free open source programs can rely on copyright law and sue for monetary damages if the terms of their use licenses are violated. In this case, plaintiff-appellant Robert Jacobsen ("Jacobsen"), who held a copyright to a computer programming code, made that code available for free public download from a website pursuant to an "open source", or public license (the “Artistic License”). In the underlying case, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California denied Jacobsen’s motion for a preliminary injunction against defendants-appellees Matthew Katzer and Kamind Associates, Inc.(collectively "Katzer/Kamind") whom Jacobsen accused of copying copyrighted code from his website and incorporating it into Katzer/Kamind's software packages in violation of the Artistic License. The District Court ruled that Jacobsen’s Artistic License precluded copyright infringement liability. On appeal, the Federal Circuit reversed, holding that copyright holders who engage in open source licensing have the right to control the modification and distribution of their copyrighted material whether or not the license is provided free or charge. The language of the Artistic License at issue put conditions on the use of the open source programming code, and a violation of those conditions gave rise to a proper claim here. On such basis, the Federal Circuit vacated the denial of the motion for preliminary injunction, and remanded the case back to the District Court for further review.

Detailed Summary:

The issue in this case was whether a copyright holder who made certain copyrighted programming code available for free public use could validly enforce an “open source” copyright license to control the distribution and modification of that software.  Plaintiff-appellant Jacobsen appealed from an order denying his motion for preliminary injunction. Opinion, p.1, citing Jacobsen v. Katzer, No. 06-CV-01905 JSW, 2007 WL 2358628 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 17, 2007). Jacobsen held the copyright to his computer programming code and made that code available for free public download as part of his open source software group, Java Model Railroad Interface (“JMRI”). Though provided free…

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