This makes me wonder: has any judge ruled in favor of a plaintiff seeking compensation from people that used or redistributed software that he published on the internet for free without any copyright notice or disclaimer?
The real issue would be if the author decides they want to close source it later, updates the license, and then demands everyone stop using it.
No. Thats like saying the very act of sharing pictures online implies you want someone else to use them, or that printing your book and selling it somehow implies you want the world to copy it.
You share on GitHub because its a source control platform, and your code may be interesting to others. This does NOT mean that you are okay with someone taking the code and using it in their (potentially commercial) program.
That is NOT implied, and thats why licenses exist. You could even argue that, as GitHub has license detection etc. built in, sharing and reading code there should mean you are aware of licensing.
Please explain how you are viewing this unlicensed reply without downloading it.
> You share on GitHub because its a source control platform, and your code may be interesting to others. This does NOT mean that you are okay with someone taking the code and using it in their (potentially commercial) program.
Please explain how HN is not taking my unlicensed reply and using it in their commercial HTML code sent to your web browser.
Nothing unlicensed about your reply. From HN's Terms of Use:
> By uploading any User Content you hereby grant and will grant Y Combinator and its affiliated companies a nonexclusive, worldwide, royalty free, fully paid up, transferable, sublicensable, perpetual, irrevocable license to copy, display, upload, perform, distribute, store, modify and otherwise use your User Content for any Y Combinator-related purpose in any form, medium or technology now known or later developed
Also as I have pointed out in other comments, this is a contract, and as such there are quite a few reasons that a contract like this might not be binding. One major weakness is its semblance to a "click through agreement". An agreement hidden in the footer of a website or in the fine print on a registration page is even more subtle than that and it's entirely possible build a case against implicit agreements that automatically kick in through mere use of a web service. There is considerable case law devoted to this and it's gone both ways - depending on the specific facts of the case, who makes the better argument, and the disposition of the judge.
Now, obviously, that doesn't necessarily imply that you grant the user the right to do the same outside of GitHub.
A work with no license file is private by default, even if you can see it.
[0]: TRIPS Article 9 Section 1: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Agreement_on_Trade-Related_As...
As an aside it is very strange that so many people derive their understanding of copyright law from various international treaties. These very rarely come into play in actual U.S. copyright cases and have little influence over the way courts interpret the law.
A person should be able to recover that package, law enforcement might help recover the package, but it is unlikely a DA would prosecute for theft, and it would be very difficult to win damages if recovered.