Interestingly, in another decision, that did go as high as the Cour de Cassation, Microsoft did get a license violation treated as counterfeiting, with higher monetary damages.
Looks like it's about someone selling Windows, without paying Microsoft and/or without having a reseller partnership with Microsoft. The article is sadly very short and lacking any details.
There is no contract involved depending on the circumstances.
If I understand alright, it's about somebody selling 13 656 illegitimate copies of Windows.
Microsoft went all the way to cour de cassation because they wanted to get full price for each copy and the court wanted to use bulk price to estimate damages. Microsoft won the case the 3 times, they were just not satisfied with the damages.
The ruling of the cour de cassation is really about denying microsoft the full price and explaining how to calculate damages.
I think the difference is that in the Windows case the "person in question never had a license" (or well enough valid licenses).
On the other hand in this case there was a license given out (to every one) but it's terms where breached. Licenses are contracts so breaches ending up on contract curt isn't absurd. The only reason it doesn't happen in the US is the automatic Termination of the license/contract if it's breached. But I guess this is where the court decided that a automatic full termination in the specific way combined with a lawsuit based on the after effects of the termination isn't valid/doable/...
If the person copied it from a legitimate version of windows that they originally bought, couldn't one then argue that they did have a license that they then violated?
I guess the point I am making is that I don't think that line tracks.
> couldn't one then argue that they did have a license that they then violated?
It's a thin line, but I would say no as they only had a license for a single thing, while GPL is a license for any amount of usage. What was violated was the context of usage, not that illigal copies where made (I mean copies => copyright ;=) ).
But I had similar thoughts, it's a really thin line.
More here on the Entr'ouvert vs Orange case: