intellectual-property open-source-software creative-commons
Are different licenses legally binding and can any person/company sue another person/company for violating open source licence?
<p>With "license" I am referring to the open source licences such as the Creative commons licence or other open-source software or hardware licenses such as MIT License or GNU License or CERN hardware license.</p>

<p>So let's assume that an organisation or a person has been caught violating the terms of the open source License (let's say creative commons License) then can I sue that person for violating the terms and if these Licenses aren't legally binding , then what's the use of it ?</p>

<p>The point of the license is to spell out the terms under which the copyright holder allows others to use, modify and/or distribute the code. Enforcement of the license in the case of free / open-source code is a bit iffy, but generally holds up in court if the terms are reasonable (as is the case in nearly every open-source license).</p>

<p>Only the copyright holder, or someone explicitly authorized by the copyright holder to enforce its rights, can validly sue for infringement of copyright. If you are such a person, then of course you can sue. MIT/BSD/CERN licenses are still <em>licenses</em>, and breach of the license (and with it, usually the only authorization to use the code) almost certainly constitutes copyright infringement.</p>

<p>Unless you own the rights to the code in question, though, you have no standing to sue. If you want to help with enforcement of copyright, contact the person/company listed in the copyright notice. If they don't care, then oh well.</p>
