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I'm starting to get into writing Free (as in Freedom) software and I want to make sure I do it properly. I prefer to license my work under a copyleft license since I don't want my code to be given to corporations for free (as in free beer). Looking into it however, I'm a little confused as to how I can ensure the copyright of my work is enforced.

I understand that I can't sue for Copyright Infringement on someone else's behalf; only the copyright holder has the power to do that. I also understand that when I contribute code to a project, I still retain ownership of that code, unless I explicitly sign a CTA. This makes FOSS projects essentially a collection of different copyrights held by different people. This makes it a little complicated as to who the "copyright holder" is.

If I contribute code to a project, say for example, one that has accumulated thousands of contributors, is licensed under the GPL, doesn't have a CTA, and someone infringed on the copyright of that project, can I sue them for Copyright Infringement?

Let's take 5 scenarios:

  1. I contributed a few bug fixes to the project
  2. I contributed some bug fixes to the project
  3. I contributed numerous bug fixes, to several places within the project
  4. I contributed an entire feature to the project, and I actively maintain it
  5. I am one of the project's top contributors, to the point where I am considered the main developers of it

In each of these scenarios, would it be possible for me to sue for Copyright Infringement without any other contributor's involvement in the lawsuit? If it is possible, are there ways for companies to weasel their way out in each scenario?

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I think you're falling foul of the "coloured bricks" model of copyright, and trying to quantify how much you have to contribute to a project to "get the bricks painted in your colour". But copyright doesn't work like that.

If you do any of the five things you've listed, you are now a rightsholder, along with a bunch of other rightsholders, in the entire work. Any contribution more than a de minimis one will make you such. At that point, you have standing to sue for copyright infringement.

(I note in passing that in some jurisdictions, third-party rights exist, which is to say, persons other than the rightsholders can sue alleged violators for copyright violation.)

tl;dr:

If I contribute code to a project, say for example, one that has accumulated thousands of contributors, is licensed under the GPL, doesn't have a CTA, and someone infringed on the copyright of that project, can I sue them for Copyright Infringement?

Broadly speaking, yes, you can.

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    But if you sued and someone was ordered to pay your damages, and there are 1000 equal contributors, your damage would be one thousandth. If you are the only one suing, your cost could be high. Commented Jul 5 at 11:07
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    Well, normally you'd apply for a costs award. But yes, in terms of the nuts and bolts of the lawsuit, if your contribution to the project is tiny you can reasonably expect any damages to be comparably small. That said, the usual point of copyleft lawsuits is to persuade the alleged infringer to comply with the licence, in order to avoid any such judgement, and being one of the rightsholders puts you in a much stronger position to make that argument. Commented Jul 5 at 12:39
  • If you get $100 in damages, that wouldnt stop many people. And you won’t get your lawyer cost back. The alleged infringer may not ask their lawyer “how do I avoid $100 in damages” but “how do I make this as expensive as possible for them”. Commented Jul 11 at 15:47
  • "If you get $100 in damages, that wouldnt stop many people." That depends. If you're a minor rightsholder, and the court holds that (a) infringement of the rights in the product has occurred, and (b) you wrote about a thousandth of the product, then a judgement in your favour for a hundred dollars is really bad news for the infringer - because all the other rightsholders now have a shoe-in judgement for $99,900. Commented Jul 11 at 18:59

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