Can an open source licence be revoked if it violates employer&#39;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, but later finds the library's public repo on GitHub. Questions: Can the employer force revocation of the licence? What would then happen to those who forked and started using the library before revocation? There are related questions on OS SE, such as https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/4012/are-licenses-irrevocable-by-default. But they do not seem to address the situation when a library is open-sourced in violation of an employer's IP.
The Apache 2.0 license purports to be irrevocable, but it also presupposes that the supposed licensor has the right to grant permission to copy. In this case, that is untrue, so there never was a proper license and nothing to revoke (the copyright owner grants permission in the form of "a license" which is a legal abstraction, that normally is specified in the license document). An end-user snared by this illegal license might attempt to sue the author because of the legal screw-up but paragraph 9 says that the supposed licensor cannot be held liable. In this case, though, "licensor" is defined not as the person who hands you the license document, but as the copyright owner. So it's the employer who would be not liable under the terms of the document (but since the employer had nothing to do with the license, it's as though the license never existed). The end-user is a secondary infringer (the employee is the primary infringer, in illegally distributing the material). Under US law, that doesn't matter, the user is still liable. Under UK law, secondary infringement includes the element that you have to have reason to know that the copy is infringing, which in the scenario that you describe is not the case.
The MIT license is non-exclusive. If S is the sole copyright holder, S can issue any other non-exclusive license in parallel, and can also stop offering the software under the MIT license. However, open source licenses such the MIT license are generally understood to be irrevocable, so S cannot prevent other people from using the software who already received it under the MIT license terms. But: only if S is the sole copyright holder. There is no particular reason to believe that S would be the sole copyright holder. One does not gain a copyright ownership just by supervising other people, although an employer might gain copyright ownership over works created by employees (e.g. the US “work for hire” doctrine). That the copyright notices only mention S's name is an indication that S might be a copyright holder, but that's neither sufficient nor necessary for showing that S holds sole or joint copyright in the software. This leaves three relevant scenarios: S might be the sole copyright holder, in which case, yes, S can effectively discard the MIT license. This might be the case e.g. if there was some other copyright assignment, outside of the MIT license. What copyright transfers or assignments are valid depends on the local laws, e.g. some jurisdiction do not recognize copyright as transferable and at most allow the assignment of economic aspects of copyright. S might not be the sole copyright holder, but have additional permissions to the work. For example, there might have been extra licensing agreements, outside of the MIT license. Or S might have special rights for a work of joint authorship, if and only if the jurisdiction recognizes such additional rights. S might not be the sole copyright holder and not have any agreements outside of the MIT license. Then S has no additional rights, and is bound by the terms of the MIT license. This doesn't have to be a problem: S can still pretty much do whatever S wants with the code, as long as S fulfils the license terms. These are pretty simple: just keep a copy of the copyright+license notice with any copies of the software the students created.
The GPL does not explicitly specify a time within which the source code must be provided, which probably means a &quot;reasonable time&quot; is allowed. What is &quot;reasonable&quot; would eventually be evaluated by a court, if the matter ever got that far. But please note that only the copyright holder (or the holder's authorized agent) can sue for infringement. The license does not give other people a right to sue for infringement, and I doubt that any license could grant such a right. One could inform the copyright holder who could sue, but the holder need not sue, and undertaking such a suit would involve expense, time, and effort. Whether the offer to provide the source constitutes a binding agreement is not clear, and may well vary in different jurisdictions. The question does not state any particular jurisdiction.
This could be a problem if the consultancy agreement contains a provision that assigns to the client any copyright in any code created by the consultant. That is why there should be no such provision. In the absence of such a provision, the consultant owns the copyright in the code, so it would be impossible for the consultant to infringe that copyright. Even so, copyright protects a particular expression of an idea, not the idea itself. The idea of an "analyze data" class containing a "read data" function is not itself subject to copyright protection. It could potentially be patentable as a "process," but it would fail to meet the criterion of novelty. It would also fail to meet the criterion of non-obviousness. On the other hand, a software developer cannot (without permission) copy source code that is protected by copyright simply by changing the names. Changing the names would constitute the creation of a derivative work, and the right to create derivative works is also protected by copyright.
You'll want to read the actual licenses yourself and understand what is required. If you don't understand, then you'll want to consult an attorney. But neither of these licenses are all that complex in my opinion. MIT: Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the &quot;Software&quot;), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. Apache 2.0: Redistribution. You may reproduce and distribute copies of the Work or Derivative Works thereof in any medium, with or without modifications, and in Source or Object form, provided that You meet the following conditions: (a) You must give any other recipients of the Work or Derivative Works a copy of this License; and (b) You must cause any modified files to carry prominent notices stating that You changed the files; and (c) You must retain, in the Source form of any Derivative Works that You distribute, all copyright, patent, trademark, and attribution notices from the Source form of the Work, excluding those notices that do not pertain to any part of the Derivative Works; and (d) If the Work includes a &quot;NOTICE&quot; text file as part of its distribution, then any Derivative Works that You distribute must include a readable copy of the attribution notices contained within such NOTICE file, excluding those notices that do not pertain to any part of the Derivative Works, in at least one of the following places: within a NOTICE text file distributed as part of the Derivative Works; within the Source form or documentation, if provided along with the Derivative Works; or, within a display generated by the Derivative Works, if and wherever such third-party notices normally appear. The contents of the NOTICE file are for informational purposes only and do not modify the License. You may add Your own attribution notices within Derivative Works that You distribute, alongside or as an addendum to the NOTICE text from the Work, provided that such additional attribution notices cannot be construed as modifying the License. Nowhere does either license require you to publish your application's source code, even if your application is directly based on the original code.
Their code, their rules A copyright holder is free to offer their work under none, one or many licences. They can, at the same time, use their own work however they see fit without regard to the licences they have given/sold to others (except, they can only give one person an exclusive licence). As an analogy, let’s say I own a fleet of cars. I can drive my cars anytime I want. I can let Jim drive my cars anytime he wants for free. I can let Mary drive a specific car on Thursdays and only within 10km of the depot. I can let Joe drive my cars providing he pays me $50 a day. And I’m not going to let Fred drive them at all because Fred’s a jerk. Each of those is a different licence.
When a company is dissolved, someone takes over the company's asserts, often the creditors, or they may be sold for what they will bring. Failing anyone else, it may be the crown. Assuming that the copyright was in fact owned by the company (and not by someone else and merely licensed to the company), someone owns it, (just as someone owns the physical property that the company had) but it may be hard to find out who. It is even possible that the owner is not aware of the copyright. As for Person A, that depends on the details of A's contract or agreement with the company. A may be a co-owner (unlikely). A may have rights to use the code to some extent. Or A may have no more rights than I do (that is, none at all). According to &quot;Ownership of copyright works &quot; an official UK government web page: Where a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work, or a film, is made by an employee in the course of his employment, his employer is the first owner of any copyright in the work (subject to any agreement to the contrary). The expression “in the course of employment” is not defined by the Act but in settling disputes the courts have typically had to decide whether the employee was working under a ‘contract of service’ (eg as an employee) or a ‘contract for services’ (eg as a freelancer or independent contractor). Where a person works under a ‘contract for services’ he will usually retain copyright in any works he produces, unless there is a contractual agreement to the contrary. Thus if person A was acting as an employee of the company, the copyright would automatically be owned by the company, in the absence of any written agreement between A and the company. The page goes on to state: When you ask or commission another person or organisation to create a copyright work for you, the first legal owner of copyright is the person or organisation that created the work and not you the commissioner, unless you otherwise agree it in writing. However, in some circumstances, for example when copyright is not dealt with in the contract to commission the work, courts may be willing to find that there is an implied licence allowing the commissioner to use the work for the purpose for which it was commissioned. This does not necessarily result in a transfer of ownership. Instead, the commissioner of the work may only get a limited non-exclusive licence. ... Thus if A was acting as an employee in creating or co-creating the code, and there was no written agreement on the matter between A and the company, A would have no rights to the code, and the copyright would pass to whoever purchased or was awarded it after the company dissolved. Such a copyright might well have been included in a purchase of &quot;all other assets&quot; (or some such language) and no explicit or specific mention of it been made. The situation in the US would be basically similar. Work by an employee within he scope of employment is a &quot;work-made-for-hire&quot; (WFH) under US copyright law( See 107 USC 101), and the employer is legally the author (which is not true in UK law), unless there is a written agreement to the contrary. The natural person(s) who in fact created the wok have no rights unless an agreement grants such rights. On dissolution the copyright does not end, nor is it transferred to the creator, but passes to whoever bought it, or bought or was awarded the general assets of the company (such as in a bankruptcy proceeding).
A legal measure that can protect you is called a contract. See What is a contract and what is required for them to be valid? A formal contract will codify that you own the IP, they are working for hire, they are not to use or share the code with anyone else, etc., and will outline the penalties under international and Pakistani law. But good luck enforcing your copyright or suing for damages if they do take your code for their own. See Copyright law of Pakistan - Wikipedia.