The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Verizon, on behalf of its clients, the developers of BusyBox, alleging that the company is illegally distributing BusyBox software to its FiOS customers.

Verizon distributes an MI424WR wireless router made by Actiontec Electronics to customers of fiber-optic broadband Internet and television services, commonly called as FiOS.

The lawsuit says that the router contains BusyBox and that Verizon doesn’t provide the source code for BusyBox to its FiOS customers, as it is obligated to do under GNU GPL (General Public License) version 2.

BusyBox is a set of utilities that are included in embedded systems using the UNIX operating system.

Dan Ravicher, Legal Director of the SFLC, said, “Our clients licensed BusyBox under the GPL to ensure that all users of the program can access and modify its source code. Because Verizon chose not to respond to our concerns, we had no choice but to file a lawsuit to ensure that they comply with the GPL.”

The SFLC did not name Actiontec as a defendant in the lawsuit as the company responded to SFLC’s earlier notice. Ravicher disclosed “We are in what we believe to be productive discussions with them about their issues,” IDG News Service writes.

The complaint filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York also requests that an injunction be issued against Verizon and that damages and litigation costs be awarded to the plaintiffs.

“The suit does not seek a specific amount in damages; the SFLC would have to determine the extent of the infringement first, which it can only do with information from Verizon that it would obtain through the suit’s discovery process,” Digital Trends writes.

This is the fourth GPL enforcement lawsuit filed by SFLC on behalf of BusyBox developers Erik Andersen and Rob Landley. Defendants in previous cases have included Monsoon Multimedia, High Gain Antennas, and Xterasys Corporation.

Monsoon Multimedia settled out of court in October. Cases against High-Gain Antennas and Xterasys are still active.

Verizon has 20 days to respond to the complaint.

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Entry was posted on Friday, December 7th, 2007 at 9:02 pm under Legal.

Read more entries by Ruben Francia.
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