The law, contrary to what people in this thread have been saying, recognizes intent. It's the same principle as the recent, controversial ruling about the AT&T data leak. Yes, AT&T should have taken better steps to secure their data. But you retain control over even implicitly private data. Technical measures like DRM and passwords help to cement the intent, and impede people who would ignore a written warning.
In this case it's probably buried in the EULA for the non-activation version that you still need a valid CS2 license. While not all EULAs are enforcable, this seems like a pretty clear case where that condition would be upheld in court.
Your examples are all a bit silly, because that's what we have licenses for. In general, I would say if you found code with no license, or code being made available contrary to the license in the headers, it's not suitable for including in any project. I think a court would agree that a reasonable developer, finding what looks like proprietary code with no license attached, should not copy or derive code from that sample.
The t-shirts and huge banner are a funny case, because if you consider Oracle v Google ( or any other IP case involving open source ), it's entirely possible to make code available and retain control over it. Hell, even copyleft licenses are based on the idea that you can distribute something but legally restrict it's use.
In short, if you make a creative work you have broad control over how it's used, even if it's technically possible to use that work in ways you don't allow. In the absence of an explicit license, it's only safe to assume that you have no permission to use anything.
> I would say if you found code with no license, or code being made available contrary to the license in the headers, it's not suitable for including in any project. I think a court would agree that a reasonable developer, finding what looks like proprietary code with no license attached, should not copy or derive code from that sample.
Code without an explicit license is protected by copyright and is by default All Rights Reserved. The person or people who wrote the code are protected as such. Any time you're using software you didn't write, licensing should be considered and abided.
OK, that makes sense to me. The more I think about it, the licenses and passwords are just ways to keep people from stealing something that they don't have a right to use.
Even though I can see what Mickey Mouse looks like, I can't make a t-shirt with his face on it and sell it. Even though I can see Adobe's source code, I can't use it without permission. Your copyleft note is very good as well, btw. I can see GNU source code, but there are still restrictions on use.
How would the EULA be enforceable on software a user reasonably found? That's like a contact in a book you find on the bus. Without a sale the UCC won't apply...
Copyright is called that because its about creating new copies, not reading an existing one.
How is the GPL enforcable? If you download code from Github, the copyright holder can restrict your usage, up to and including prohibiting anyone from using it. It's silly to conflate digital works with physical media, copyright properly refers to a creator's right to control and potentially profit from their intellectual property.
edit: I find it funny that on one hand, when 'stealing' comes up, people who reject IP law say 'but it's not like physical objects, they still have it'. Then when licenses come up, it's like 'finding a book on a bus'.
The GPL is enforceable in that it doesn't try to prevent anything. Using it merely means you share title in your derived work.
This (having GPLed code laying around) is a 'found book' scenario. You've got a copy that you didn't violate copyright to make, thus it's legal to use.
EULAs are a non-copyright attempt to control this usage. They used to be based on the idea that any and all copying, incidental or otherwise, was prohibited and thus to use software (and copy it into memory) you needed a license. But this has been specifically denied in current US copyright law.
Blanket permission is now given for copying where it's an inherent part of using the work. This supports the idea that usage is generally unrestricted (unless you or your agent acquired this specific copy by license). Which makes sense; they'd have called it UsageRight instead of CopyRight if they meant that.
Now EULAs are (usually) based on the Uniform Commercial Code but that requires a contract (of sale) which can, of course, only be binding on the original parties and their agents.
So again, why would a EULA be enforceable on software a user found?
As for forum humor, do you know what I find funny? It's when someone takes caricatures of different people's views on different topics, conflates them, declares them inconsistent, and shoots down an unrelated argument based on this trail of "logic".
In this case it's probably buried in the EULA for the non-activation version that you still need a valid CS2 license. While not all EULAs are enforcable, this seems like a pretty clear case where that condition would be upheld in court.
Your examples are all a bit silly, because that's what we have licenses for. In general, I would say if you found code with no license, or code being made available contrary to the license in the headers, it's not suitable for including in any project. I think a court would agree that a reasonable developer, finding what looks like proprietary code with no license attached, should not copy or derive code from that sample.
The t-shirts and huge banner are a funny case, because if you consider Oracle v Google ( or any other IP case involving open source ), it's entirely possible to make code available and retain control over it. Hell, even copyleft licenses are based on the idea that you can distribute something but legally restrict it's use.
In short, if you make a creative work you have broad control over how it's used, even if it's technically possible to use that work in ways you don't allow. In the absence of an explicit license, it's only safe to assume that you have no permission to use anything.