software open-source-software gpl
Enforcing the GPL license on software
<p>I published a software project under the GNU Affero General Public License version 3.0. I have written the code behind it, hence I am the copyright holder.</p>
<p>According to the AGPL license, anyone who redistributes this software or a derivative must distribute it under the GPL as well.</p>
<p>Recently, I saw a distribution of a modified version of my software distributed under another license, and also violating other terms of the AGPL v3.0.</p>
<p>I have contacted several organisations, such as</p>
<ul>
<li>Free Software Foundation (FSF)</li>
<li>gpl-violations.org</li>
</ul>
<p>but I did not receive any response.</p>
<p>I do not have adequate (financial) resources (and time) to hire a lawyer just to settle this small issue, especially as this is just a side project of mine.</p>
<p>How do I enforce the license of my AGPL software, and take action on the violators of the license(to comply with the AGPL)? There are a lot of information on the Internet on how to use the (A)GPL on your software but very few sources of information on how you can enforce it when someone violates the license.</p>
<p>Thank you.</p>

<p>This kind of piracy is unfortunately common. When your copyright has been violated, your available response is to sue the infringer. Yes, this costs money, and yes, many infringers get away with it.</p>
<p>In the Free Software/Open Source community, a couple of actors including the FSF, gpl-violations.org/Harald Welte, and the Software Freedom Conservancy have sued GPL infringers. But they can only do that for copyrights that they hold themselves. For example, the FSF holds copyright for the GNU userland, whereas Welte and Conservancy hold copyright for parts of the Linux kernel. They do not hold copyright for your software so they cannot enforce the AGPL license on your behalf.</p>
<p>What can be done fairly easily is to file a takedown request with platforms that host the infringing content. Under various safe harbor laws including the US DMCA, a platform is not responsible if they accidentally host infringing content uploaded by users. However, the platform has to take the content down if they're notified that the content is infringing. For example, you could file a DMCA takedown request with GitHub to take down their repository, in case they are using GitHub. The drawback is that a takedown notice can be contested by the alleged infringer, in which case the content is reinstated and you would have to sue. The platform is not allowed to make its own determination about whether you or the infringer is right.</p>
