Open-source licensing under Georgian law
Distributing open source is often perceived as an unconditional permission: the code is available, everyone uses it, and attribution is merely an ethical norm. The Law of Georgia on Copyright and Neighboring Rights explains the picture differently: open code too is a work, and its use is the subject of a licence. The open-source licences widespread in the international community — with conditions that govern further distribution as well — fit within the licence-contract frame of Georgian law, and breach of those conditions is a breach of contract with contractual consequences. On this page we explain how the model works.
An open licence as a licence contract
A licence contract must include the elements defined by law: the exact description of the work — title, volume, genre; the specific type of use; the term and territory of effect; the amount of the royalty or the method of its determination, the procedure and term of payment; and other material terms. In an open licence these elements are filled by the text of the conditions: the type of use is defined by the permitted actions, and the royalty — often as a zero amount or under another model. The default rules of the law operate all the same: every type of use not directly provided for in the contract belongs to the author or other rights holder; where the territory is not specified the contract operates only in Georgia; and rights may not be passed on to other persons without direct provision. The operation of the last rule in open source is particularly interesting: further distribution is precisely a transfer of rights, and if the licence conditions do not directly provide for it, its foundation crumbles.
The boundary of free use
A licence is needed where use exceeds the free cases allowed by law. The law permits use without consent and royalty only in a closed list — with mandatory indication of the author and the source of the borrowing: quotation for scientific, research, polemical, critical and informational purposes to a justified extent; the use of short excerpts by way of illustration; reviews of current events; the reproduction of publicly delivered reports for informational purposes; and the reproduction of works created for the blind without profit. Editing the code, embedding it in your own product and distributing it cannot fit into that frame — the conditions of an open licence therefore operate precisely beyond this scope.