Re: License of code posted to this list

[David Bellows]

> Basically, if you want to be legal and you want to use some code you saw on 
> the list, you need to get the author's permission. Hopefully, he put that 
> permission in the post, otherwise you need to contact him. That said, the 
> chances of anyone complaining are minimal, and in most jurisdictions breach 
> of copyright is a civil offence so the damages will be small and the costs 
> horrendous so nobody will want to do anything about it.

Yeah, that's why I've been contacting everyone (fortunately there's
only been two people so it's easy), just to be safe.

I'm trying to get my project hosted at https://savannah.nongnu.org/
which does require everything to be licensed as free software which
apparently they audit and is why I need to make sure everything is in
order. Plus it's just a good idea anyway.

Dave

On Sat, May 9, 2015 at 2:48 PM, Anthonys Lists <address@hidden> wrote:
> On 09/05/2015 22:06, David Bellows wrote:
>>>
>>> I'm not sure so this maybe wrong. But AFAIK copyright for content posted
>>> to the list is by default with the author and has no license by itself. So I
>>> think you can't assume it's PD.
>>
>> This sounds correct as well. Does just making the code available to
>> the world in a public manner imply anything about it being OK to use
>> it in another project? I don't know the answer to that and thus these
>> questions. But you are correct, I'm betting, that the author does
>> automatically own the copyright to the code (at least in the US).
>
>
> The Berne Convention (which applies to pretty much every country in the
> world - the US was one of the last to join the system) says that EVERYTHING
> you write, by default, is your copyright, for a minimum term of 50 years.
> Various modifications apply, of course, for example employees are assumed
> for the purpose of this to be the employer, so the employer gets the
> copyright etc etc.
>
> The other crucial thing about Berne is that it says the nationality of the
> copyright holder is irrelevant (this was crucial because of the way the US
> made it almost impossible for foreign authors to register or keep
> copyrights).
>
> There's nothing, as far as I know, in Berne that says copyrights have to be
> protectable (a country could abolish copyright and still be compliant with
> Berne, as long as the same rules were applied to works by local nationals as
> to foreign nationals).
>
> So basically, unless the list post explicitly says "this is PD", or "this
> code may be used for any purpose", or some other grant of permission, then
> in most jurisdictions using it is technically illegal. A clear example of
> differences in jurisdiction is that if I used your code to make money,
> that's a criminal offense over here. But not afaik in America.
>
> Then in some jurisdictions you cannot abrogate your rights (EU especially),
> and in some jurisdictions you can't place stuff in the Public Domain.
>>
>>
>> Should there be some kind of agreement that everyone signs off on when
>> subscribing to the mail list concerning any code they might
>> contribute?
>>
>> And is the line that David added sufficient?:
>>
> Dunno about what David wrote, but I'm sure I didn't sign off on anything
> when I joined the list. Basically, if you want to be legal and you want to
> use some code you saw on the list, you need to get the author's permission.
> Hopefully, he put that permission in the post, otherwise you need to contact
> him. That said, the chances of anyone complaining are minimal, and in most
> jurisdictions breach of copyright is a civil offence so the damages will be
> small and the costs horrendous so nobody will want to do anything about it.
>
> Cheers,
> Wol
>
>
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