Questions tagged [copyright]
For questions about the copyrighting process and principles. Questions solely pertaining to general copyright are off topic.
360 questions
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How to Comply With MIT Licensed SVG In Print
I have found an MIT licensed SVG that I wish to use in print, for instance a business card.
The relevant part of the MIT license:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be ...
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2
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1
answer
274
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BSD Licensed code used as a part of a research project
I'm currently learning a bit more about software licenses and have realized how permissive the 3-clause BSD license is. I have a small question. If I use BSD licensed code for a computation in a ...
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0
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Is it legal and ethical to copy someone else's GitHub Gist into my own repository? [duplicate]
I'm writing a Markdown file for personal documentation and learning purposes. I found a useful piece of code in a public GitHub Gist, but also I changed it a bit to fit my needs. I'd like to include ...
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How does a programmer ever produce original code if anything they produce is considered derivative because they viewed similar source code?
I'm very confused by what I'm finding on this site. On one hand, it appears as if no programmer is even capable of producing original code if they have ever viewed a source code for a program which ...
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Using an oss as a guidebook without license infringement
I know of an open source software (a game engine, server/client/website+database) that does many of the things I need my software to do. I will have to gut and replace certain portions entirely (the ...
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How to distribute LGPL2.1 dependency shared lib with a python package?
I am working on python bindings for a C library, which uses LGPL2.1.
My Python bindings for the library link dynamically against it. For the python bindings to work when installed I need to ship them ...
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Reimplementation of UI/UX ideas of commercial software in open source (MIT)
What are the legal implications of making an open source implementation (under MIT license) of commercial (closed source) software ideas in terms of UI/UX, logic of interface and general workflow, and ...
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What parts of code are protected by copyright?
Open Source licenses are all underpinned by copyright law. Without copyright law, Open Source would fall apart.
Copyright was originally written for creative works, and does not protect facts, ideas, ...
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I made a license for my X.com account. Is this legally binding?
So I made this license, in the style of GPL3 as a humorous pinned post for my profile on X.com. But now I'm wondering if this is actually legally binding? I would like it to be.
Account Content ...
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Is there any point to the copyright notice in 0BSD?
The 0BSD license template contains a copyright notice line.
Copyright (c) [year] [fullname]
Permission to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute this software for any
purpose with or without fee is ...
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Does adding license headers to files without existing headers count as my modification to an Apache 2.0-licensed project?
I recently used a starter template project for an API that is under the Apache 2.0 License, where the project doesn't have a NOTICE file and individual files in that project don't have their own ...
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Is it possible to use library as private confidential in GPL 3.0 Project
I have a project (for context it's Android) that is GPL 3.0 License and wants to append a library as a private non-license or MIT Personal License.
Is it possible to achieve that without violating the ...
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Can I use GPL 3.0 license project as library to my private project with MIT license
I'm working on a private project and considering integrating a library that is licensed under the GPL 3.0 (GNU General Public License version 3.0). However, my project itself is licensed under the MIT ...
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Do I meet the conditions of GPLv3 license?
GitHub says GPLv3 licence conditions are:
License and copyright notice
State changes
Disclose source
Same license
License and copyright notice: How do I write copyright notice? Is it enough to write ...
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How to open-source code for an ebook-style iOS Qt app but retain control of the content? [duplicate]
Years ago (whenever Qt 5.7 was current), as a contractor I developed a closed source tablet app for a company with (at the time) a commercial license for Qt (they assigned me a license seat). The app ...
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How much of a given work of software can be claimed under fair use? [closed]
I've found that my most recent project has been taking a significant portion code from a GNU GPL code base. While i’m aware that the nature of copyright law allows for such usage, I’m unclear about ...
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Can one of several heirs of a copyright release it under a Creative Commons license, and if so, how?
Alice created a work and died without publishing it. Bob and Charlie jointly inherited the copyright. All three live(d) in the United States. Bob wants to publish the work under a Creative Commons ...
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3
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148
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Someone wants to contribute code with a copyright notice. Should I be concerned?
I maintain a parser combinator library called Parjs, licensed under the MIT license. I’ve received a PR that contains a copyright notice by Oracle.
I was under the impression that whoever contributes ...
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18
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1
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How do I release code written for a company to the public?
I'm working on a Unity project for a company and, while doing so, I wrote some code that I think would be cool to have it on the internet, free to use.
But I never released something that is owned by ...
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2
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Writing a book using LaTeX Project Public License
I am currently writing a book using this Latex Template
https://www.overleaf.com/latex/templates/nice-arabic-book-template/qttfgxhqbwkc licensed under The LaTeX Project Public License.
Can I print and ...
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164
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Short Weak Copyleft Software License
Is there a short weak (or strong) copyleft license?
I like the GPL v3. The way that all its different sections interlock is quite poetic. However, this beauty comes at the cost of it being near ...
Crab
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103
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How do I properly put third-party dependencies under MIT on my copyright notice for a published MacOS app on the App Store?
If IconCast is the name of a close-sourced app I'm publishing that makes money, and AppIconSetGen, an open source library under the MIT license made by someone else that I made some changes to (which ...
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327
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How can I comply with the terms of the HPND license if I am using a library that contains that license in a commercial application project in python? [closed]
I have a PIL library that is for images in Python. I am developing a desktop program that is for commercial purposes. However, I am not selling, I only offer voluntary donations to users. The PIL ...
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2
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1
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189
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Open code, closed repo?
Has anyone tried to separately license their repository (e.g. Git) from the code that it holds? How did it go? (Sorry about the open-ended nature of the question.)
Corollary to this question: what is ...
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76
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How did software copyright work in the US before 1978? [closed]
Prior to the Copyright Act of 1976 (which, confusingly, only went into effect in 1978) the copyright rules were different. One of the things that was introduced was that after the beginning of 1978, ...
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1
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Can I reuse Pokemon images from Bulbapedia for making a boot screen theme in Ubuntu?
I am planning to make a Plymouth theme with some cute pokemon images (like this) from Bulbapedia.
I want to release the theme under GPL3.
Bulbapedia's Fair Use policy seems confusing to me. Under this ...
5
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2
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283
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AGPLv3 - Does indirect use over intermediary servers constitute "distribution"?
Let's say I'm building an app consisting of a frontend, backend and database.
The database software is AGPLv3.0 licensed and running on the database server.
The backend is proprietary, running on the ...
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2
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270
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Proper way to include Copyright information relating to a single Class file
I'm working on a commercial Java product that is distributed as a .war file.
I want to add the source code of a class I found in a book to our code base. The book gives no license information for the ...
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3
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224
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Notices.txt or Copyright file header when porting code
The following Java project contains an Apache 2.0 license https://github.com/apache/pdfbox-jbig2/blob/master/LICENSE.txt as well as a copyright header on every file in the project https://github.com/...
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530
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How can I add a license for one file from a github repository?
I would like to use a text file from a GitHub repository that is under MIT License.
My repository is private and I'm distributing my software. My question is how can I use this file and put the right ...
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3
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1
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98
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GNU license for "Open Metronome" - what license applies to beats generated with it?
If i am using the GNU-licensed software "Open Metronome" (https://sourceforge.net/projects/openmetronome/) to create the basic rhythm of my own music, I am wondering if I can freely ...
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2
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Change copyright author after forking GPL v2 code? [duplicate]
Say I fork the source code here, modify the code, and finally distribute the source code and the derived work.
Can I change the copyright notice at the top from
# Copyright 1999-2022 Gentoo Authors
# ...
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3
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Is there a license that prevents someone from copying the entirety of the source code and claiming it as their own or using it with ill intent?
I'm planning to make an open-source game engine/editor called the NWR Project https://github.com/NotWhiteRice/the-NWR-Project I don't care if people copy the visuals, menus, etc., but I don't want ...
2
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172
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What's the difference between GPL licence and CECILL-2.1?
These two licenses are for open-source code. Does the CECILL-2.1 give rights to sell the open source code without author notification, as it says in Article 5?
5.3 RIGHT OF DISTRIBUTION
In particular,...
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446
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What rights do Artistic 2.0 licence gives to the Author?
I am not sure that this license grants the Author the right of referencing its name in future modifications of Open-Source code. Does this license grant the Licensee the right to sell the modified ...
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2
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1
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66
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Does it mean that Author of the source code is equal to the Holder?
I'm analyzing the "Cea Cnrs Inria Logiciel Libre License, version 2.1 (CECILL-2.1)" software licence and don't clearly understand something. This licence has the following definitions:
...
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130
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Should I get rid of "All rights reserved"?
Almost all my open source files has "All rights reserved" written along the usual "copyright © 2XXX My name" in the first line. I recently heard that, besides being obsolete, this ...
3
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1
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357
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Importing GPLv3'd code: Which copyright notice to add to my own code?
Let's say I import some header files (or Python modules) which are under GPLv3 into a source file that I would like to publish as Open Source (OS), and also signify that I have copyright on that ...
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1
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70
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Using CC BY-SA 4.0 data file for calculations on rest server used by closed source game
I'm making word game which is based on semantic similarity between words.
For that i need word vectors file. One of such file is available here, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0:
https://github.com/...
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4
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1
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If I do an ML project copying code heavily from Tensorflow's tutorials, am I still allowed to share it on Github (or other repositories)?
(I asked this on Reddit and didn't get a good reaction. I wasn't sure if this was the right forum, but I wanted to ask somewhere related.)
I'm fairly new to machine learning (and programming in ...
2
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0
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68
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Could a CLA be avoided by simply specifying in the license a particular owner who may grant closed source use? [duplicate]
One of the main purposes of a CLA (contributor license agreement), as I understand it, is to allow some owner of the software to have full rights to relicense the code if desired. This is rather ...
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640
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How to handle Apache 2 license for backend use
We are using an open sourced (Apache 2.0 License) OCR framework/library for a website. User uploads an image to our web portal, we send that image to the backend, which hands over that image to the ...
4
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1
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244
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BSD-3/MIT etc. - How "often" do I need to include the license text?
For instance, the BSD-3 Clause license states:
Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/...
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123
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What is the proper way to add attribution to a gpl3 licensed diff/patch file?
This is as much a technical issue as a license issue, but I would appreciate correction if any of my assumptions about how the licenses work are incorrect.
Assume that I want to use a patch file from ...
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433
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Copyright a web page created from a MIT license theme?
I am confused as to how to describe a web page from a theme licensed under the MIT license that I want to modify and use for my own private commercial purposes. I do want to have the copyright on what ...
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How do open source licences affect the incorporation of copyright / trademark logos names in a project?
When a private corporation decides to publish software under a permissive open source licence (for example, the MIT licence) there might still be a desire for that company's name and logo to be ...
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I use the npm package, do I have to specify the license for each package?
If I use a specific library and this library uses other packages..
In the event that I have a license and copyright notice, is it obligatory for this library or for all sub-packages?
Do I have to ...
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5
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Are there any software licenses that allow for everything but changing the license or dual-licensing?
I would like to allow users of my code to make derivatives, but disallow derivatives from imposing any restrictions on the usage of my code. Is there an existing license that would fit this ...
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2
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506
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What to put in header copyright notice after total conversion of library that didn't have license headers?
I want to convert a C# library (not written by myself) licensed under Apache License v2 to C++.
The original C# library has a LICENSE file with the Apache license information, however the individual ...
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684
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LICENSE text in build folder
When I build my site using create-react-app build, it creates a main.779c7054.js.LICENSE.txt which contains the license texts of the dependencies. In this case I am using Next.js and lets say I am ...
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