Re: License compliance on updating gcc runtime libraries

[kenner at vlsi1 dot ultra dot nyu dot edu (Richard Kenner)]

>      Remember that, from the perspective of copyright law, executing a
>      program is making a "copy"
>      of that program.
> 
> Has that (rather extreme) view been litigated?

That's actually not extreme, but pretty accepted.  And yes, that has
been litigated.  And you can see that in the GPL in the definition of
"propagate": the exclusion of executing it on a computer wouldn't be
necessary if that weren't considered a copy under copyright law.

Much more extreme positions have been in course rulings.  I'm aware of
a case where a jury ruled that linking a program with a library made
the library a derivative work of the program in all cases (it clearly
is in some).  That case was never appealed, so it (luckily) doesn't
establish a precedent.