StackOverflow code is under a license - cc by-sa 3.0. They were planning on clarifying this by moving to the MIT license, but there was some pushback on that an

StackOverflow code is under a license - cc by-sa 3.0. They were planning on clarifying this by moving to the MIT license, but there was some pushback on that and they are holding off for now at least: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/272956/a-new-code-license-the-mit-this-time-with-attribution-required?cb=1 https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/272956/a-new-code-l... Besides that, most snippets are small and trivial enough that using them would easily fall under fair use. Obviously, your case showed a lack of care on their part, but you can use SO code.