开源软件社区贡献者维权的法律问题——以德国“McHardy v.Geniatech”案为视角  

Legal Issues on the Enforcement of Copyrights by Community Contributors to Open Source Software——From the Perspective of Mc Hardy v.Geniatech

作　　者：刘海虹[1] Liu Haihong(School of Law,Shanghai International Studies University,Shanghai 200083 China)

机构地区：[1]上海外国语大学法学院,上海200083

出　　处：《科技与法律（中英文）》2023年第1期100-109,共10页Science Technology and Law（Chinese-English Version）

基　　金：国家社科基金重大项目“创新驱动发展战略下知识产权公共领域问题研究”(17ZDA139)。

摘　　要：开源软件的协作开发是一个复杂的动态创作过程,开发人员的组成、分工、能力等会发生经常性改变,社区贡献者流失与对应程序包丢弃、被接管等也普遍存在。不能依据开源软件版本控制系统记录中社区贡献者的署名和核心开发团队成员的署名推定社区贡献者为软件开发者。采取分支管理代码的方式开发的开源软件,在认定其著作权归属上应区分主线版本与分支版本。社区用户提交审核的代码具有独创性并被纳入主线版本的,该社区贡献者可以认定为主线版本的共同著作权人;未经过审核被纳入主线版本的分支版本是基于开源软件初始版本的改编作品,社区贡献者可以就其单独开发的分支版本自行维权。作为主线版本及分支版本的共同著作权人,社区贡献者应根据共同著作权人行使著作权的规定维权。德国“McHardy v.Geniatech”案表明社区贡献者发送警告函的行为在权利状况、警告内容、警告范围等方面均可能存在瑕疵,超出正当范围。GPLv2第四节关于使用者违规之后开源协议自动终止的规定也为勒索式维权提供了机会。为避免社区贡献者自行营利性维权,应借鉴国外著名开源社区的经验,鼓励开源软件社区管理组织确立以公开为原则、激励合规为导向的社区投诉和维权规则。The collaborative development of open source software is a dynamic creation with great complexity,the formation of development team and division of their work keep changing,and community contributors may leave and their contributions might be lost or received.The attribution on the records of version control system or inclusion as key developers shouldn’t be basis for presumption of authorship.In determining copyright ownership of open source software developed in the form of branch management code,master versions and branch versions should be distinguished.If the code written by the community user is original and included into the master version upon peer evaluation,the community contributor may be regarded as the co-owner of the master version;the branch version is derived from the initial version of the open source software,and the community user contributing the code solely to the branch version may be the sole author of the branch version as derivative work.As the joint copyright owners of the master version and the branch version,the community contributors are eligible to enforce their respective copyright according to the relevant provisions concerning the exercise of copyright of joint work.McHardy v.Geniatech indicated that the community contributors sending out warning letters and selectively requesting,and dropping requests for,preliminary injunctions might be abusing the law.Section 4 of GPLv2 concerning the automatic termination of rights upon violations of licence terms by the user of open source software also provides an opportunity for copyright trolling.In order to avoid community contributors’ copyright trolling activities,experience of major open source communities based on the "principles of community oriented enforcement" is valuable.

关 键 词：开源软件 社区贡献者 版权流氓 McHardy v.Geniatech案 

分 类 号：D923[政治法律—民商法学]