A group of lawyers focused on protecting open-source and free software has
filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Verizon Communications, alleging
that routers the company uses with its Fios broadband service violate the GNU
GPL (General Public License).
The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) filed the copyright
lawsuit Thursday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New
York on behalf of developers of BusyBox, a lightweight set of standard Unix
utilities commonly used in embedded systems. The SFLC has previously filed copyright
lawsuits on behalf of the developers against three other companies, but Verizon
is by far the largest target.
The lawsuit against Verizon alleges that the telecom giant uses BusyBox code
in wireless routers made by Actiontec Electronics. The routers, distributed
to customers of Verizon's Fios broadband and television services, contains BusyBox,
the SFLC alleges, but Verizon does not provide the source code of BusyBox to
customers, as obligated by the GPL.
BusyBox's developers licensed the software under the GPL "to ensure that
all users of the program can access and modify its source code," said Dan
Ravicher, legal director of SFLC. Verizon has not responded to SFLC's attempts
to resolve the issue, he added.
"We reached out to them three weeks ago," Ravicher said. "They
never responded in any fashion."
A Verizon spokesman said the company is aware of the lawsuit. "This matter
is being dealt with," said David Fish of Verizon. "We've referred
it to the responsible third-party vendor."
The SFLC has also contacted Actiontec, but that company has responded, Ravicher
said. "We are in what we believe to be productive discussions with them
about their issues," he said. "This is why we purposefully did not
name them as a defendant in the lawsuit. To the contrary, Verizon has simply
ignored us, which leaves us with no option other than litigation to get them
to address our clients' concerns."
Both Actiontec and Verizon have obligations under the GPL as distributors of
BusyBox, Ravicher said. "When Actiontec distributes to Verizon, Actiontec
has obligations," he said. "When Verizon turns around and redistributes
to customers, Verizon has obligations. Even if Actiontec fulfills its obligations
when it distributes to Verizon, that does not fulfill Verizon's obligations
when it distributes to its customers."
The Verizon action is the fourth GPL enforcement lawsuit filed by SFLC on behalf
of BusyBox developers Erik Andersen and Rob Landley. The case against Monsoon
Multimedia was settled out of court in October, with Monsoon agreeing to remedy
its prior violation, ensure future compliance, and financially compensate the
developers, according to the SFLC.
Cases against High-Gain Antennas and Xterasys are still active.
The SFLC assists nonprofit open-source and free software projects. Its chairman
is Eben Moglen, longtime general counsel to the Free Software Foundation.
