That's pretty interesting. I wonder if it's within npm's legal right to distribute someone else's IP in such a way that they do not desire. Granted the license is WTFPL but does that include taking over the IP itself?
In some jurisdictions you have "moral rights" in addition to your copyright - but even in those, I'd expect the WTFPL constitutes a license to falsely claim authorship of the covered code. I mean, the text pretty clearly authorizes you to do so on its face, and courts lean pretty strongly towards reading words under their plain, normal meanings. IANAL.
That said, I don't think "un-unpublishing" code (even under your own account) is the same as claiming ownership, just redistribution.
IANAL but "do whatever the fuck you want to" would seem to include literally everything including taking over the IP.
Well, I'm certainly not a lawyer, but I personally think thats in the spirit of the "Do What the Fuck You Want to Public License"... And at the end of the day the IP is still owned by the original author; the distribution of it has changed.
"DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO" clearly includes not only taking over the IP but also RE-LICENSING IT under whatever terms you like. That's kind of what "DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO". Do. What ever the fuck. You want to.
How is this unclear? I'm kind of baffled.
I'm not aware of case law where a license has been able to move the original IP from one party to another; I've only heard of that happening through standard legal documents.
But I also pointed out that I wasn't sure how it would shake out anyway and was seeking feedback.
I don't think I did?
> I don't see anything that implies that. Someone got a copy of the code under an irrevocable license that grants them to right to re-publish it, and that's what they are doing.
Yeah mostly curious if the original author could, say, use the DCMA or something similar to force npm to take it down if he really wanted to.
As for the DMCA, usually not since most FOSS licenses are explicitly irrevocable, but with the WTFPL, who knows.
That's almost the same thing. Like if someone dropped their domain name and you grabbed it up. The customer / user isn't going to notice a difference but it's now being represented by someone else.
I don't think anyone cares enough to really do anything about this though. Mostly curious if it was possible to do something about it but I'm guessing the waters are pretty untested.