> Anyone who distributes the CPU must provide the legal notice, i.e. not just Intel but also the computer manufacturers who placed the CPU in a computer, and the sales companies that eventually sold the computer to you.
First sale doctrine can not invalidate a copyright license or else any person could do it by launder the product through a shell company which only purpose would be to be the recipient of the original copyright license and then resell the work without the attached conditions. A naive legal approach would be that if you buy a work under condition X and resells it then condition will also be transferred in the sale.
In this case, condition X is: "Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution."
Redistribution does not require creating new copies.
No, it extends to anyone, it's part of copyright law in the US. I'm confused thinking of how it applies to software licenses though. I guess software licenses are not a purchase of an object, but a _license_ to use it. (And of course it's not open source that pioneered this legal application). The first sale doctrine lets you, for instance, resell a book you buy -- it doesn't let you print more books. It's unclear and confusing to me how it applies to what's being discussed too. Probably who knows what a judge/jury would do.
To be clear, I'm suggesting first sale applies to to the companies that buy CPUs from Intel and put them in the computers they build, and the sales companies that buy those computers and resell them to consumers.
I'm not suggesting it applies to Intel.
Intel is making copies, so they need copyright owner permission.
The company that buys a CPU from Intel and solders it into a computer they build, and the sales company that later sells that computer to a consumer, are not making copies. They are just passing on copies they received. Hence, they should not need copyright owner permission because of first sale.
There is one possible hitch that comes to mind. In the US version of first sale, it applies to the owner of a copy that was "lawfully made". If Intel is violating the license, and if that means the copies Intel makes are not "lawfully made", then first sale does not apply to those copies.
Your second theory is correct. The first sale doctrine does not apply when the initial copy was not lawfully made, at least under the US Copyright Act. Without that exception, section 501 imposes strict liability for infringement. It doesn't require that the plaintiff allege or prove knowledge or bad faith.
The reason for this might be more obvious in the context of something more obviously infringing, such as bootleg DVD movies. A plaintiff can hold the reseller of the bootleg DVDs liable just as it could the manufacturer. That's desirable since the manufacturer could be judgement-proof (e.g., fly by night company). And we wouldn't want the copyright owner to have to prove that the reseller knew the DVDs were bootlegs.
In the case of distributing Intel CPUs, the principle isn't as obviously applicable as it is to bootleg DVDs, but it still applies. So, the resellers could be held liable for copyright infringment as well.
That being said, since Intel isn't a fly-by-night operation like a manufacturer of bootleg DVDs, the copyright owner can just go after Intel directly.
Wasn't one of the important precedents for this in the US the case of someone selling software on ebay (If I remember correctly it was top end cgi software from autodesk or someone similar)? So if there is physical medium at least (like a cpu) first sale doctrine certainly applies as long as the first sale was legal (seems like that's not the case with Intel).
The title should probably be something along the lines of "No legal notice supplied with Intel ME's minix fork".
Interesting read nonetheless. Here, the ones that could sue are the copyright holders (A.S Tanenbaum), and I would be surprised if they were interested.
I think Linus said something like "you don't make friends by suing people" and while Intel has not followed the license to the letter, court should not be the first answer to that
Tanenbaum’s software was used against the terms of the license to produce possibly the most oppressive product in computing — one which he specifically finds objectionable.
If he ever considers pursuing the case, I’d donate some money!
The problem with worldview is the law suit is the stick
Of course one should want to avoid law suits, however if you tell a violator you will never sue them, and there will be never any consequences for violations of your license, then why even have a license at all.
People that respect you project do not need the license in the first place, and people that do not respect your project now have no reason to start as you have told them they will suffer not legal consequences from you.
Imo suing in a professional setting is orthogonal to making friends. You obviously don't want to piss off powerful entities, but they should not get a free pass especially as they would do the same.
Further, Intel ME being one of the most anti consumer pieces of tech clearly adds an emotional angle to this. I can see where the people saying they should reap what they sow are coming from. It is not everyday a too big to fail brand might be held accountable, even if it is only tangential to the main problem.
All Intel would have needed to do to comply with the license was include a small blurb in that tiny insert provided with each retail chip. Similar to the about screen in most mobile apps that list all the individual libraries and their OSS licenses? Right?
What about the first sale doctrine?