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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