The legal status of open source licences has been strengthened after a US federal appeals court overturned a lower court's decision in a copyright case.

The appeals court decided that conditions of an agreement called the Artistic License were enforceable under copyright law. This backs the idea behind open-source software which allows people to freely modify and distribute it.

The court decision was based on free software used in model trains that Robert Jacobsen, a model-train enthusiast made available online. Jacobsen claimed that Matthew Katzer used the software to develop commercial software products for model trains without following the terms of the software's licence.

US District Court for the Northern District of California decided that the licence Jacobsen used was intentionally too broad and he could only sue for breach of contract. But yesterday the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said that Artistic Licence applied in this case and this was enough for anyone to get an injunction.

Wendy Seltzer, a fellow at the Berkman Centre for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School said that the ruling means that if people do not follow the conditions you put into an open-source licence. X

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