4 ms·

Depends on license.

williamcotton 2y ago
It doesn’t, actually: https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/ https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/ more likely to find that nonprofit educational and noncommercial uses are fair. less likely to support a claim of a fair use than using a factual work (such as a technical article or news item). if the use employs only a small amount of copyrighted material, fair use is more likely. And since code tends to be more idea than expression most of it can be considered to not fall under copyright after the application of the Abstraction, Filtration, Comparison doctrine. Of course if you piss off an entity with a bunch of money to throw at lawyers it could be a bigger issue, regardless if you’re in the right, because defending yourself can rack up legal fees. I do copyright/patent/trade secret inspections of source code for a living. EDIT: Yet again, downvoted for just stating the truth... The irony is that 10 years ago and before the controversies around LLMs this comment would not have garnered negative attention because the forum was all for weaker copyrights... when copyright affected musicians instead of programmers' bottom lines... Sigh...
- nicbou 2y ago
  There are other countries with different laws. In Germany it would definitely be copyright infringement.
  - williamcotton 2y ago
    The entire world benefits from sites like the Internet Archive and the commons-friendly approach of fair use. I recommend changing the laws in your country! EDIT: I did a little bit of investigation and there are similar limits on copyrights in Germany known as "limitations on protected rights" that seem to carve out things like educational use and archiving, but I don't know anything about German law. I would find it surprising if most Western nations didn't have something similar to fair use unless there was an active interest in damaging the public's access to information.
- chuckadams 2y ago
  Fair use is an affirmative defense: you only get to pull it out after they sue you, and your claim is judged on a case by case basis. It’s not the magic spell of protection people seem to think it is.
  - williamcotton 2y ago
    Yup, I know that, but I encourage people to not be afraid of republishing little bits of code for educational or archival purposes. They should know they do have fair use to lean on if they do end up in the incredibly unlikely situation of ending up in court.. unless of course they're painting a very large target on their backs and making quite a bit of money from the IP of a large corporation!

Depends on license.

It doesn’t, actually: https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/ https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/ more likely to find that nonprofit educational and noncommercial uses are fair. less likely to support a claim of a fair use than using a factual work (such as a technical article or news item). if the use employs only a small amount of copyrighted material, fair use is more likely. And since code tends to be more idea than expression most of it can be considered to not fall under copyright after the application of the Abstraction, Filtration, Comparison doctrine. Of course if you piss off an entity with a bunch of money to throw at lawyers it could be a bigger issue, regardless if you’re in the right, because defending yourself can rack up legal fees. I do copyright/patent/trade secret inspections of source code for a living. EDIT: Yet again, downvoted for just stating the truth... The irony is that 10 years ago and before the controversies around LLMs this comment would not have garnered negative attention because the forum was all for weaker copyrights... when copyright affected musicians instead of programmers' bottom lines... Sigh...

nicbou 2y ago
There are other countries with different laws. In Germany it would definitely be copyright infringement.
- williamcotton 2y ago
  The entire world benefits from sites like the Internet Archive and the commons-friendly approach of fair use. I recommend changing the laws in your country! EDIT: I did a little bit of investigation and there are similar limits on copyrights in Germany known as "limitations on protected rights" that seem to carve out things like educational use and archiving, but I don't know anything about German law. I would find it surprising if most Western nations didn't have something similar to fair use unless there was an active interest in damaging the public's access to information.
chuckadams 2y ago
Fair use is an affirmative defense: you only get to pull it out after they sue you, and your claim is judged on a case by case basis. It’s not the magic spell of protection people seem to think it is.
- williamcotton 2y ago
  Yup, I know that, but I encourage people to not be afraid of republishing little bits of code for educational or archival purposes. They should know they do have fair use to lean on if they do end up in the incredibly unlikely situation of ending up in court.. unless of course they're painting a very large target on their backs and making quite a bit of money from the IP of a large corporation!