Best Buy, Samsung and 11 Other Brands Named In SFLC Lawsuit

Best Buy, Samsung, Westinghouse, and JVC are among the 14 consumer electronics companies named in a copyright infringement lawsuit filed today in New York by the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC).

The SFLC is a non-profit law firm established in 2005 to provide pro-bono legal services to Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) developers. The suit was filed on behalf of the Software Freedom Conservancy (Conservancy), the non-profit corporate home of the popular software application BusyBox and many other FOSS projects, and Erik Andersen, one of the program's principal developers and copyright holders.

The suit charges each of the defendants with selling products containing BusyBox in violation of the terms of its license, the GNU General Public License version 2 (GPLv2).

Known as the “Swiss Army Knife” for Linux, BusyBox is a common component of a growing number of household devices, including Best Buy's Insignia Blu Ray DVD Player, Samsung HDTVs, Westinghouse's 52-inch LCD Television, and more than a dozen other products that the defendants have continued to sell without the permission of the software's copyright holders. Under the terms of the GPLv2, anyone can view, modify, and use the program for free on the condition that they distribute the source code to customers.

The SFLC confirmed BusyBox violations in nearly 20 separate products cited in the complaint and gave each defendant ample time to comply with the requirements of the license. “We try very hard to resolve these types of issues privately with companies, as we always prefer cooperation” said SFLC counsel Aaron Williamson. “We brought this suit as a last resort after each of these defendants ignored us or failed to meaningfully respond to our requests that they release the source code”.

This article is CC-BY-ND-NC Software Freedom Law Center