SFC Files Updated Motion for Summary Adjudication in Historic Vizio Case

Fri Jul 11 16:03:03 UTC 2025

URL:  https://sfconservancy.org/news/2025/jul/10/sfc-updates-motion-for-summary-adjudication-vizio/
Fedi: https://social.sfconservancy.org/objects/d2267bae-856b-4704-9479-0b6e35ed529b

Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) announces that we seek summary
adjudication on a key issue in our case against the TV manufacturer,
Vizio. This Motion for Summary Adjudication (“MSA”) [1] is an important next
step in SFC's ongoing case against Vizio [2] — who has been in violation of
the copyleft terms of the General Public License, version 2 (GPLv2) and
Lesser General Public License, version 2.1 (LGPLv2.1) for many years. SFC's
renewed MSA [3] specifically asks Judge Sandy N. Leal of the Superior Court
of California in Orange County to rule — as a matter of law — that SFC has a
right as a third-party beneficary under GPLv2.

Third-party beneficiaries (“3PBs”) under contract is a right often sought in
situations where an agreement between two other parties specifically
intended to give a benefit to someone else. (Below is an example of how 3PB
claims typically work (*).) SFC filed its claim not as a copyright holder of
the programs in question, but as a purchaser of Vizio TVs. When SFC
discovered that the complete, corresponding source code (“CCS”) was not
provided for these devices, SFC filed the lawsuit to demand the CCS as a
3PB.

GPLv2 and LGPLv2.1 are agreements between licensors (e.g., copyright
holders) of software and companies that incorporate that software into their
devices.  SFC, as a third party, bought these Vizio TVs &mdash: knowing they
were just general-purpose computers with a display attached — hoping to
repurpose the devices for deployments such as video chat clients for BBB or
for displays at SFC's FOSSY [4] event. To do this, SFC needs the CCS
(including the “scripts used to control compilation and installation of the
executable”). Vizio has failed to provide the CCS. In fact, Vizio continues
to argue that SFC doesn't have standing to demand CCS in court as a
3PB. SFC's MSA asks the Court to rule, as a matter of law, that SFC has
standing and rights as a 3PB.

SFC previously filed a similar MSA [5] on 1 December 2023. Judge Leal
partially denied that motion [6] on 26 March 2024. Vizio's primary objection
was an (incorrect) claim that Free Software Foundation (“FSF”) did not agree
that the GPLv2 was meant to give rights to third-parties.

SFC has always believed the 3PB right under GPLv2 was self-evident, for many
reasons, including but not limited to the text of GPLv2 itself. GPLv2§3(b)
requires redistributors to `to give any third party' an opportunity to
receive CCS. Sadly, Vizio convinced Judge Leal in Vizio's response [7] to
the prior motion that FSF's opinion could be a relevant fact to SFC's 3PB
claim, and that it was possible FSF might disagree with SFC regarding 3PB
rights.

Vizio subpoenaed FSF, and — represented by FSF's Executive Director, Zoë
Kooyman — FSF gave a deposition in the case and a declaration in support of
SFC's new motion [8]. In short, we have shown how foolish Vizio was to
assert to the judge that charities who are dedicated to software freedom and
the rights of users might possibly disagree on an issue of this importance.

Winning an MSA carries a high burden — Judge Leal must be convinced that no
issue of fact remains on the issue. To succeed, the judge must rule as a
matter of law that the 3PB right exists in GPLv2 and LGPLv2.1. SFC is
confident in our chances for this motion, but, if not successful, SFC is
fully prepared and expects to adjudicate this case at trial (starting
September 22, 2025).

After many delays in the case, SFC is excited to announce that in late 2025
— regardless of the outcome of this particular motion — we expect to
successfully adjudicate this key issue of third-party beneficary rights
under the GPLv2 and LGPLv2.1.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Footnotes:

(*) Here's an example unrelated to software that explains the concept of
    “third party beneficary” (“3PB”): Imagine if Alice is a carpenter with a
    niece named Charlotte, who is just about to start college. Bob wants
    Alice to fix his stairs. Alice wants to help Charlotte pay tutition for
    school, so she alters her standard contract so Bob has to pay Charlotte
    the fee that would normally go to Alice. If Bob reneges on this promise,
    Charlotte would have the right enforce her claim to that fee against
    Bob, even though Charlotte isn't a party to the carpentry contract
    between Alice and Bob.

References:

[1] https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/glossary.html#summary-judgment
[2] https://sfconservancy.org/vizio
[3] https://sfconservancy.org/docs/2025-05-23_SFC-vs-Vizio_second-SFC-Motion-for-Summary-Adjudication.pdf
[4] https://fossy.us/
[5] https://sfconservancy.org/docs/software-freedom-conservancy-v-vizio_2023-12-01_SFC-Motion-Summary-Adjudication.pdf
[6] https://sfconservancy.org/docs/2024-03-26_SFC-vs-Vizio_order-partially-granting-SFC-first-MSA.pdf
[7] https://sfconservancy.org/docs/2024-02-01_SFC-vs-Vizio_Vizio-response-to-first-SFC-MSA.pdf
[8] https://sfconservancy.org/docs/2025-05-23_SFC-vs-Vizio_second-SFC-Motion-for-Summary-Adjudication.pdf#page=34

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