Obtaining source code from an uncooperative company when you&#39;re an author
<p>According to an answer on <a href="https://law.stackexchange.com/q/64933/15724">Methods for obtaining source code from an uncooperative company</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You're probably out of luck. The company distributing this firmware has an obligation to provide you the source code, but this obligation is to the copyright holder. You are not the copyright holder. The copyright holder would have to sue them for license compliance.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Does this change for someone who wrote some of the code and the copyright of that portion is under their name? For example, would someone like Ulrich Drepper (the author of several components of the Linux kernel) be in a different situation than the OP of that question with regards to having rights to the source code if other copyright holders (like SFC) don't sue?</p>

<p>It depends on the license the code comes under and whether theres a copyright-assignment requirement for that project.</p>
<p>In the case of the Linux kernel, the license is the GPLv2, and there is no copyright assignment requirement - so anyone who can prove ownership of code within the shipped binary (important caveat there - the Linux kernel is configurable, so parts of it can be excluded from the binary) can pursue a claim of copyright infringement if the source code is not distributed according to the license.</p>
<p>With the case of things like GCC (until the most recent version), while the project uses the GPL (v3), it also required copyright assignment to the FSF, meaning the original authors do not hold the copyright and thus have no standing to sue (authors rights not-with-standing).  They have now dropped this requirement in the latest GCC version, but it stands for older versions.</p>
<p>As copyright holder, you have no ability to actually force the binary distributor to comply with the terms of the license - you can merely threaten them with, and pursue, a claim of copyright infringement.  In court, you can sue to stop them from infringing further and to pay punitive and actual damages.</p>
<p>You may be able to get them to agree to conform with the license terms, but its highly doubtful that a court would agree to force them to conform with the license terms (there has yet to be a copyright-infringement case orientated around open source software that has resulted in a court forcing the infringing company to GPL their own code they were trying to protect by non-compliance).</p>
<p>So, to answer your question, theres no actual avenue here which results in you obtaining the source code you have copyright ownership of - the legal actions you can take are ones of stopping infringement and claiming damages. You might be able to come to an out-of-court settlement or a voluntary agreement to provide the code, but court actions will be about stopping the infringement and damages.</p>

<p>Anyone can <em>demand</em> the source code. But if you don't get it, only copyright holders can sue. The fact that <em>anyone</em> didn't receive the source code they demanded makes the distribution copyright infringement. So a copyright holder can sue for copyright infringement, even if they were not the person who was refused the source code.</p>
<p>So your steps would be: Request the source code. If you don't get it, inform a copyright holder. You may also send a letter informing the company of the legal requirements in case they don't know. For the copyright holder it would be the simplest, easiest and cheapest way to do the same, except they can add &quot;if you don't play by the rules, I will sue you&quot;. Which has a good chance of solving the problem at minimal cost.</p>

united-states copyright open-source-software