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Raspbian 'PIXEL'  license agreement, Do you use it, have you read it? Are you concerned? (You should be)

rive

What good an open source software distribution that you can't legally redistribute because it has proprietary parts?

The whole advantage of free and open source is that I can just fire up as many copies of the operating system as I like, give it to friends, slice and dice it - and never worry!

"Redistributing" is very general. If I made an RPi disk image and handed it to a friend, this is certainly "redistributing".

 

This isn't like "all commercial rights reserved" which we all understand is reasonable.

 

A regular user opens themself up to be sued for perceived damages, if they so much as post a screenshot of their 'PIXEL' desktop. or if it is determined they so much as crop or edit the image(s), or resizes it to any size other than "long edge at 1920px".

 

You cannot use the desktop images if you are a commercial entity (because if you are selling/including Raspbian PIXEL in, or with your Pi product, you violate the PIXEL licensing terms).

 

You cannot redistribute them period, for any reason, commercial or not. You ( the end user) do not own them, you cannot do with them as you please or even share them (e.g, 'redistribution'), and (you the end user) cannot even use them yourself on your system/Pi/hardware after 10 years, (at which time you are no longer covered under the use license, and you must remove them if they are installed).

 

If you violate the use/licensing terms, you can be sued for significant damages. You indemnify the rights holder/owner/representative agent/authorized third party against any and all claims (in other words, if you get sued for unauthorized use of the images, you cannot counter-sue for monetary loss, attorney's fees, defamation, etc).

 

 

Source: /usr/share/pixel-wallpaper

 

license.txt

 

The photographer grants the Licensee the non-exclusive, non-transferable and non-

assignable use of all images named above for 10 years, for the purpose of use as the

default wallpaper included within the Raspbian operating system, distributed by the

Raspberry Pi Foundation. The licence is “digital only” and for medium resolution

(long edge at 1920px), images shall not be used in any other form (such as in print

publications) nor for any commercial activities. However, use of the images to promote

the operating system and the activities of the Foundation (such as on social media, on

blogs and printed at trade shows) is acceptable.

 

Provisions:

The photographer retains all copyrights attached to the images as well as any other

rights which may not be detailed in this agreement.

 

Selling and/or redistribution of the images is forbidden.

 

Licensee is allowed to crop and/or electronically alter images to suit their purposes

for the usage stated above.

 

Indemnity:

The Licensee indemnifies and holds harmless Greg Annandale against all claims,

liability, damages, costs and expenses stemming from a breach of this agreement,

the use of the images, your failure to abide by any restriction regarding the use

of an image, or any claim by a third party related to the use of the images.

Attachments:
license.txt.zip
  • 0

    Nothing new here - the RPI Foundation has never given a damn about open source in the way that most of us understand it.

     

    This may or may not be a deliberate act of policy - possibly just sloppiness. It does serve to illustrate how incredibly careful you need to be when distributing a commercial product based on 'open source' code.

     

    Have you asked the RPI people about it ?

     

    There is a thread on their website sort of discussing it.

     

    I want to know if Greg Annandale created the views he photographed, if he takes a picture with a bit of my garden in it can I assert my rights on that image

     

    MK

  • 0 in reply to michaelkellett

    I wouldn't call it sloppiness. The text clearly has the hand of a legal department in it.
    It's an odd stance. The Pi doesn't need these funny things; the brand is strong enough by itself without fencing things off.

    On the other hand, it's their product. They can do as they please.

  • 0

    I have no idea what you are raving about. The license you are so worried about only applies to 16 images used for wallpaper in PIXEL for the photographer

    that supplied them. He is completely within his rights to spell out the copyright terms and conditions for the use of his images and I don't really have any

    problems with the terms he listed. If you don't like them, don't use any of his pictures for wallpaper and/or don't use them in any way that violates his

    terms (Michael).

     

    @ Michael

     

    "Nothing new here - the RPI Foundation has never given a damn about open source in the way that most of us understand it."

     

    This license isn't about open source code it's about photographs.

    Yes, it's not like you can get the source code for Raspbian and build it yourself, oh wait !

    Or like they have the ONLY fully documented GPU used in any ARM SOC, oh wait !

    Now if they would just publish their schematics I would be much happier with them.

     

     

    "It does serve to illustrate how incredibly careful you need to be when distributing a commercial product based on 'open source' code."

     

    You still need to be careful with distributing open source code in commercial products even if it does not include copyrighted photographs.

     

     

    "I want to know if Greg Annandale created the views he photographed, if he takes a picture with a bit of my garden in it can I assert my rights on that"

     

    Possibly, and if you could you would, like him, be completely within your rights to do so in any lawful terms you see fit.

  • 0 in reply to gdstew

    The point that concerns me about this, and similar, bundling of copyright or otherwise restricted or protected material into a package that might reasonably be expected to be freely used is that it requires anyone who uses the bundle, for pretty much any purpose other than playing at home, to consider and understand the legal niceties of the terms.

     

    When the terms are one of the well known standard open source licenses there is a publicly available discussion, and even consensus as to their meaning - for the pictures this is not the case - I'm not a lawyer and I have no idea at all what the conditions mean and who they might apply to.

     

    BTW - if I finish a sentence with a image it generally means that I'm being ironic or attempting a joke - however not all jokes (or irony) are guaranteed to be so indicated.

     

    MK

  • 0

    This is a good example of how you need to understand licenses and their intent and context.

     

    Not being a lawyer, it is easy to be misled by the verbage, which has very precise legal meaning, but seems like unnecessary obfuscation to us poor engineers.

     

    Given the context about the photos used by the OS, the agreement sounds reasonable and only extends to the photos themselves, not the OS or its distribution.

     

    Copyright law is very explicit, I had to spend a lot of time with the lawyers as we reviewed software IP issues.

     

    The big limitation is that the law was written for an era when all such media was in print form, which was more easily to police and enforce.

     

    The digital age has made the ability of some people to exploit the works of others much easier to do and near impossible to find and prosecute.

     

    So we get statements like this all of the time.

     

    Bottom line, you are free to use the software and if it is declared Open Source, you can share it as long as you do not claim ownership.

     

    You can use the photos for your personal use without worry.

     

    DAB

  • 0 in reply to DAB

    To DAB. Great Post(ing) BUT Again I take Issue w/ people who DO NOT post their Physical Location. UK, USA. NZ, Netherlands, Aussie-country, etc;

    IP (Intellectual Property) Laws vary w/ Nations. I as an US Patent Atty cannot comment w/o considering the Country we are talking about. Pls help me help You.

    USCDADNYC (NY NY USA)

  • 0 in reply to uscdadnyc

    For context only,   is USA from profile and the pictures in question are UK location.

    Clem

  • 0

    Reading legal texts is not "rocket science". If you read carefully, things can be deciphered.

     

    Although specifics of copyright law may differ by country, the general line is the same everywhere. The places where things differ are for example when you make a copy of a book for your studies. Is "for my studies" a good enough "excuse" to violate the general rule "no copying allowed unless the author says so".

     

    What bothers me a bit is that the terms disallow redistribution. That would mean that if I prepare a raspbian image that works out-of-the-box with my DMX interface for Raspberry pi , I would be in violation of the licence of those images, even though that was probably not the intention of the author of those images and their licence.

     

    I don't usually use "desktops" on raspberry pi's. So I never see those images, let alone their lincence....

  • 0 in reply to rew

    RW wrote>>...for example when you make a copy of a book for your studies..

    USCDADNYC reply>>this in US Copyright Law is under the "Fair Use" Doctrine. IDK what it is called in possible the UK(?), where the DMX -RPi URL showed $ Denominations differing US Dollars. Where are you located again? IP Law consists of those who, "prosecute" (get protection), "transactional" (buy/sell-negotiate IP), "litigate" (fight over IP rights). I am Not much of a Transactional IP Atty, but I found it rather strange for the License posted was for Ten Years? Is that a UK(?) thing? In the US, w/o any Licensing done, works that are copyright-able have protection for the Life of Author + (70, 90, 125 Years). IDK that much about Transactional Copyright Law, but in the Patent Realm it can be Rather Complicated. What w/ technology being so complicated and costly, companies are are virtually forced into buy/sell needed technology. For example are the SEPs - Standard Essential Patents. In the US, licensing in SEPs have to be FRAND -

    Fair Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory. I love it (US IP work). It the US presently there are Three Major Sports - Baseball, Football (US Style), and Litigation. I have the Last Two down Pat. LOL

    USCDADNYC (NY NY USA)

  • 0 in reply to rew

    Looks like someone copied it from here http://www.diyphotography.net/files/u8/agreement-to-license-an-image.pdf

    the text and sentence ordering looks very similar.