Re: License of code posted to this list

[Anthonys Lists]

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