> So with respect to code that’s already on GitHub, I think the answer to the question of copyright infringement is fairly straightforward. That statement is w

> So with respect to code that’s already on GitHub, I think the answer to the question of copyright infringement is fairly straightforward. That statement is wrong. Github does not know if the uploader of some lines of code is actually the author of said code or otherwise allowed to upload it. Imagine I uploaded the source code of Microsoft Windows to Github. The Github ToS can force users to grant them whatever they want, but I am legally unable to grant them any usage rights for the Microsoft Windows code that I uploaded. There will be many cases of people uploading code, including open source code, from elsewhere to Github, and the original author not caring or whatever (e.g. informal mirrors), where the uploader is unable to grant Github any rights.