Re: Musicology with Lilypond (and now correct attachments ;-)

[mason]

On 10/28, Klaus Blum wrote:
> AFAIK, the public domain licence also applies to anything published on
> the LY mailing list. I hope that I'm not wrong as I don't intend to
> "steal" other people's code...

I don't think that list users agree to a CLA or otherwise give anyone
else the ability to decide how any code they share is licensed, so
unless the author of a code snippet explicitly releases it under a free
license, or the snippet is too trivial to be copyrightable, then in most
jurisdictions the code snippet probably is non-free.  Most list users
probably *intend* for the code they share to be free, so they are
unlikely to attempt to enforce any copyright restrictions, but in the
177 countries who signed the Berne Convention they legally reserve all
rights to the code.

Most LSR snippets are free probably non-free as well.  "Public domain"
is ambiguous in the context of works whose copyright restrictions have
not expired (or are not public domain from some other reason, such as
being published by the US government).  The closest you can get to
"releasing" your otherwise-copyrighted work into the public domain in
all jurisdictions is to explicitly apply CC0[1] to your work.  Some LSR
snippets might include a free license statement, and some are shared by
the author elsewhere under a free license, but for the rest, the legal
status will vary by jurisdiction.  Since many contributions are
anonymous, they could be considered orphan works.[2]  In some countries
it is legal to use orphan works, but in many they are in limbo: you
can't use them without permission, but there's no one to get permission
from.  Like with the list though, I'm sure that most contributors to the
LSR intended for their code to be free and are unlikely to attempt to
enforce any copyright restrictions.

[1] https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/public-domain/cc0/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphan_work

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