Z:gnu-www-ja-enforcing-gpl--ee79c7-We have even, once or twice, f/en

We have even, once or twice, faced enterprises which, under US copyright law, were engaged in deliberate, criminal copyright infringement: taking the source code of GPL'd software, recompiling it with an attempt to conceal its origin, and offering it for sale as a proprietary product. I have assisted free software developers other than the FSF to deal with such problems, which we have resolved&mdash;since the criminal infringer would not voluntarily desist and, in the cases I have in mind, legal technicalities prevented actual criminal prosecution of the violators&mdash;by talking to redistributors and potential customers. &ldquo;Why would you want to pay serious money,&rdquo; we have asked, &ldquo;for software that infringes our license and will bog you down in complex legal problems, when you can have the real thing for free?&rdquo; Customers have never failed to see the pertinence of the question. The stealing of free software is one place where, indeed, crime doesn't pay.