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Comment by axiosgunnar | Hacker News Reader

It might help to prove intent when somebody does violate a license (they cannot say "oh wow this was copyrighted? i totally didn't know!")

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I don't think that follows naturally.

The default if code does not have any notice anywhere is that it is copyrighted, and no license is given to anyone to use it, so any use of it is a violation.

At least in the US, all creative works are copyrighted by default (such as this comment, which does not include a notice of such, but is copyrighted).

Because of that, the default assumption of anyone would be that anything is copyrighted and cannot be used for any purpose outside of fair use unless there is a specific license granting additional usage.

A copyright notice is relevant to willful infringement, which may result in higher damages. Willful infringement requires that the infringer actually knew or should have known (or deliberately avoided finding out) that the copied material was copyrighted.

When you're talking about source code, I don't think anyone is going to get away with "I thought the author died more than 70 years ago".

What I look at answers on Stack Overflow, the lack of copyright notices on the code makes me feel safe to copy it. Same goes for grabbing code from random person's blog.

If they had put explicit copyright notices in the code snippets, I'd assume otherwise.

Your assumptions are likely wrong for those cases.

In the case of a random blog, the code likely does not have an associated license, meaning it is copyrighted and any derivative use of it (i.e. copying it) is a violation of their copyright.

In the case of stackoverflow, their ToS require people who post code to share it under a Creative Commons license [0]. Unfortunately, if the author of the post didn't realize that, it's possible they did not have the original copyright and couldn't make that assignment, so you still may have to do your own due diligence.

Where things work as intended on stackoverflow, you are required to provide attribution.

Your assumptions are backwards, and it sounds like that results in you violating copyright.

[0]: https://stackoverflow.com/help/licensing

I know the assumptions are wrong. But the point is the lack of explicit copyright notices on blogs or SO posts is probably enough to convince most courts that you did not willfully violate copyright. The parent I responded to implied you’d have to convince a court that you thought the copyright expired due to death.

In general I suffer from NIH complex so don’t really copy code from those places ;)

> Where things work as intended on stackoverflow, you are required to provide attribution.

Most(*) small snippets of code (e.g., 1-10 lines) on Stack Overflow are probably not copyrightable, at least not under U.S. law. You don't need a license to copy and use something that's not copyrightable.

(*) But not all. As usual, it depends.

If any creative work is copyrighted by default (and ignorance of the law is not an excuse) then surely all use of a creative work without a license is willful infringement?

U.S. government works are not eligible for copyright.

Some works do not have sufficient creative element to be covered by copyright, or the other user may be using only the non-covered elements of the work (factual collections, or see recipes).

But probably most important, fair use is a limitation to the exclusive rights of copyright, in spite of copyright holders' frequent assertions that "any other use without written consent is prohibited". A use may be fair even against the express wishes of a valid copyright holder, as fair use is not infringement. Factors to be evaluated in fair use include, but are limited to:

  (1)the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

  (2)the nature of the copyrighted work;

  (3)the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

  (4)the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/107 see 107-112 for other limitations of copyright.

That's the catch though isn't it? It's only wilful infringement if there was intent. Just because you don't know the law, that doesn't make it allowed but it does make it unintentional.

A license notice provides a clear explanation of the rights and responsibilities of the user. This dissuades most any notion of "lack of intent" as the restrictions are put in your face from the start.

Hypothetical situation:

I have a bunch of code in a repository or set of repositories. I got confused and thought this file was one we created/had a license to reuse rather than a piece of third-party code, and thus copied it into a different project.

For my hobby projects I add a one-line comment at the bottom refering to the license and its file.

    // Please keep this line & LICENSE: <license> <year> <name> <email>

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