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I under-appreciated licenses for a very long time and only recently realized the very real risk of writing some code, posting it to github without any licensing
by raphman 15y ago
I under-appreciated licenses for a very long time and only recently realized the very real risk of writing some code, posting it to github without any licensing, it being picked up by some commercial organization, and then them licensing it and (possibly, later) taking action against you for using their code without a license (ha!).
I am not completely sure about US copyright law. However, at least in the European Union, you are the sole owner of your code as soon as you write it. Therefore, anyone putting their license on your code would be violating your author rights.
- Cushman 15y agoYou do, under the law, implicitly own the copyright to everything you create. This will not inherently protect you from costly lawsuits requiring you to prove that you do, however.
- true_religion 15y agoNothing protects you from lawsuits. I could right now sue you for slander for some comment you never made, and I fabricated evidence for. That would just make me unethical, and you can't protect against that.
- Cushman 15y agoThat may be true in the abstract, but having a registered copyright does give you additional protections that could make it easier to dismiss a suit.