SCO has infringed OUR copyright, claims IBM

IBM has filed another motion in its legal battle with The SCO Group over Linux, in which it declares that SCO has infringed IBM's copyrights by renouncing the GNU General Public Licence (GPL).

The latest filing from IBM - its motion for partial summary judgment on its counterclaim for copyright infringement - hinges on the assertion that the code IBM put into Linux remains copyrighted, and that SCO has "breached the GNU GPL".

In its previous filing last week for summary judgment on other grounds, IBM stated that SCO was still distributing Linux from its website as recently as 4 August, and now it has built on this.

IBM's motion stated: "SCO has literally copied more than 783,000 lines of code from ... 16 packages of IBM's copyrighted material.

"As a result of SCO's copying and distribution of IBM's code, SCO has unlawfully exercised IBM's rights to its works and therefore infringed IBM's copyrights."

IBM said its contributions to this source code are copyrighted. But it added: "[The contributions] are permitted to be copied, modified and distributed by others under the terms of the [GPL] and GNU Lesser [GPL].

"However, SCO has renounced, disclaimed and breached the GPL and therefore the GPL does not give SCO permission or a licence to copy and distribute IBM's copyrighted works."

SCO had not responded to requests for comment at time of going to press.