Fitting the Bill: FOSS and Alternative Copyright Licensing in the Netherlands

The chapter reflects on the state of free and open source software (‘FOSS’) and other alternative licensing schemes in the Netherlands: though still the exception in copyright licensing, a series of initiatives are paving the way for mainstream recognition and usage. Some examples, explained in the first section dealing, inter alia, with the types of licensing schemes available in the Netherlands and the EU, are the efforts made by the local Creative Commons (‘CC’) team in porting and translating licenses or the recognition by the courts of Creative Commons licensing. Sections two and three of the chapter provide a more detailed legal description of these alternative licensing schemes from the perspective of Dutch contract law and Dutch copyright law, respectively. Those aspects that have still not been construed by either common practice or Dutch courts are dealt with from a legislative and doctrinal point of view. To conclude, the last section of our chapter addresses the potential implications, and challenges, of alternative licensing schemes in the areas of patent law and competition law. Some insight is also given into the opportunities offered to the public sector by the increasingly widespread use of alternative licensing.