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Questions tagged [licensing]

For questions about permission and terms to use intellectual property.

927 questions
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What laws would Jesus be breaking if he were to turn water into wine today?

In the Bible is Jesus’ first miracle: of turning water into wine: “On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. [...] Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from eighty to a…
Tim
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Is it illegal to backup your hard drive if you have copyrighted software on it?

Is it illegal if you create a backup of an HDD that has copyrighted software installed on it? This could be anything from legally purchased games and or expensive popular graphics/video editing programs, just as an example. Is this backup an illegal…
LateralTerminal
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Is it legal to copy a software license text from other companies to write my own?

I am writing a software license myself before I hire a lawyer. Is it legal to copy a software license text from other companies to write my own? I could not find anyone talking about the copyright of the software license itself. But many software…
ultrafrog
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Do you lose the right of attribution if you're charged with a crime?

Does anything in the Creative Commons license CC-BY-SA (4.0 or 3.0) allow the person you've licensed your content with to remove attribution because you're charged with a crime? The specific case has no conviction yet.
Evan Carroll
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Legality of creating a SE replica using SE's content

Due to the recent controversy(s) regarding StackExchange, a couple other users and I were discussing the legality of creating a copy of SE and scraping the content. If we did not copy SE's actual code, just the content that users put on the site,…
user7886229
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Do disclaimers need to be capitalized?

Are disclaimers of warranty, liability, and the like legally required to be in all-caps? For example, the "disclaimer of warranty" section from the GNU GPL: THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT…
Mark
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Do the UK TV licensing rules disregard innocent until proven guilty?

I don't have a TV Licence. I use Netflix and Amazon Prime. In the UK you have to state that you don't have a TV Licence and sign a declaration to that effect every 2 years (unless you then get a licence). When signing my declaration there was a note…
user6916458
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Can an open source licence be revoked if it violates employer's IP?

Suppose a developer's contract says that all intellectual property (IP) rights to her code belong to her UK employer. While employed, she develops a library and open-sources it under the Apache 2.0 licence. The employer is not initially informed,…
schrödingcöder
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Why do some licenses have a clause stating that one can't violate the law?

Example of such a clause in the Creative MLOpen RAIL-M dated August 22, 2022 used by runwayml/stable-diffusion-v1-5: You agree not to use the Model or Derivatives of the Model: In any way that violates any applicable national, federal, state,…
Franck Dernoncourt
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Do I really have to Open Source my project?

I'm currently working on a software which uses another software under the GPL version 3 license: https://github.com/ViaVersion/ViaVersion/blob/dev/LICENSE Now someone just came to me and said I have to Open Source my project or I can get in…
Daniel
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Is there any difference in meaning between the Boost and MIT software licenses?

MIT The MIT License (MIT) Copyright (c) Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software…
OMGtechy
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Can a user sell my software (MIT license) without modification?

Basically, I was just wondering if I release a piece of open source software under the MIT license, does that mean that someone could take it and sell it onto people without doing any modification to it?
Majored
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How does licensing software not imply ownership? Don't I own a Windows operating system once I pay for it?

Background I've been through the Windows 8.1 EULA and the EULA for computer manufacturers. I've also seen this question where an answer says that Windows is sold as a software service. The EULA states this about ownership: "How can I use the…
Nav
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Does CC BY-SA permit denial of attribution if the requested pseudonym is political?

According to CC-BY-SA 4.0, § 3(a)(1), "Attribution. If You Share the Licensed Material (including in modified form), You must: [...] retain the following if it is supplied by the Licensor with the Licensed Material:" identification of the…
Evan Carroll
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Can freelancers publish code in GitHub and claim it to be theirs?

I am curious to know the legal process of a collaborated effort for a code at a small startup. Say I am the technical head of a startup, and I have about 90% of the code/commits. The other 10% is by temporary employees, interns, freelancers, etc.…
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