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Quite so. As written, it's a null statement. To be enforceable, a license has to be written by one party such that another party may acquire rights in exchang
by inopinatus 5y ago
Quite so. As written, it's a null statement. To be enforceable, a license has to be written by one party such that another party may acquire rights in exchange for accepting the terms. This is how licenses become contracts.
Simply reading the words "Don't use it" does not bind you, because there is no grant of use; there is no offer or exchange of value, so no contract has been formed, and the statement is at best advisory. It is equal to writing "All rights reserved", which is to say, you retain whatever rights pre-existed under statutory and common law, such as right of fair use and so forth, and anything due to Github's ToS.
Engineers often fall into the trap of thinking the law is a programming language. It isn't, mercifully.
- JackFr 5y agoAs pointed out in other comments, music and drama are exceptions to this where their ‘use’ is protected by copyright. You can read a play aloud if you like, but you can’t perform it publicly without permission (or royalties).
- inopinatus 5y agoThat's the typical outcome, but not by exception to this analysis; if a work of music or drama included an equally poorly worded "license", then the rights and obligations of all parties would similarly fall back to the terms of service of the platform through which the work was acquired, with a backstop of the Berne Convention, TRIPS agreement, TPPT, and various EU directives (or rather more specifically, the local implementation of those, assuming your jurisdiction is a signatory to any).