What if someone published program on invalid license and then fixed it? I saw repository on GitHub where someone had LICENSE file as below: Copyright year name Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the &quot;License&quot;); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an &quot;AS IS&quot; BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License. I have read that Apache2.0 license must be copied into LICENSE file, and then the NOTICE file will contain exactly that what I showed above. If the license was invalid at first time, then can someone say &quot;your code at some moment wasn't licensed, so I created repo with your code and added copyright on my name&quot;? And if license was fixed, then does still someone could do it, because &quot;law is not retroactive&quot;? If yes, what this poor man should do to have copyrights?
It doesn't work like that! If the code is not properly licensed, you can not acquire a license for it. If you don't have a license, you can not use it. Usage without a license is copyright infringement and not allowed: the copyright is with the author, and only the author may make derivates or copies or allow them to be made by licensing it. You do not gain copyright by fixing a licensing error - in fact, you commit copyright infringement if you do not have a license, and providing wrong copyright management information is illegal under 17 USC 1202
There is no provision for automatically relicensing infringing works (for example, distributing a program that contains parts covered by the GNU GPL and that is therefore a derived work will not automatically place the infringing program under GPL, even if that is the expected way for derived works to comply with the license. Instead, the derived work becomes at the very least undistributable, as there are competing copyright holders that disagree.
(For the data you use, you might not have to follow the license. But let’s assume you have to.) The license only applies to the content you distribute (or publicly perform, but that’s likely not relevant in your context): "Distribute" means to make available to the public the original and copies of the Work or Adaptation, as appropriate, through sale or other transfer of ownership. It doesn’t matter what’s saved on your server, it only matters what’s published (i.e., distributed). So you don’t have to publish the database. You have to attribute the content from the database when and as long you show (i.e., distribute) it. Not earlier nor longer than that.
The starting point is whether you infringe copyright by downloading or using the cracked software. The licence you purchase relates to a specific copy of the software. The licence almost certainly does not say 'You can use any copy of this software.' It will usually say something like 'You may install this software', surrounded by other language that makes it clear that 'software' refers to a specific copy. E.g. the Windows 7 EULA says 'you may install one copy of the software on one computer' and, in another place, says 'By using the software, you accept these terms. If you do not accept them, do not use the software. Instead, return it to the retailer for a refund or credit.' Nothing in that licence allows you to download an infringing copy of Windows from elsewhere and apply your licence to that copy. In the case of Windows, you don't have a licence to run 'Windows', you have a licence to run a specific copy of Windows. Therefore, even though you have purchased a licence, you would not have a licence for the cracked copy. Running a computer program inherently requires you to make copies of it in memory. In the absence of a copyright licence, this is copyright infringement: MAI Systems Corp v. Peak Computer Inc (1993) 991 F.2d 511 (defendant, who was not a licensee in relation to software, ran software and in doing so created copies of the software in memory; the person was purportedly authorised by a licensee to do so, but the licensee did not have the right to so authorise the defendant). In some jurisdictions, there is legislation to permit non-licensees to run software without infringing copyright, but these provisions (at least the ones in the US and Australia) don't apply to copies of the program which are themselves infringing copies. See 17 USC 117(a) and section 47B of the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth). Now, supposing you do infringe copyright, the question of whether that is a criminal act will depend on the jurisdiction and the other facts of the case. In Australia, downloading or using software is almost never a criminal act (offences under the Copyright Act require trade in infringing copies or commercial scale, etc). In the US, infringing copyright for commercial gain (e.g. if the software is for use in a business) or of particularly expensive software might be criminal under the No Electronic Theft Act. Furthermore, downloading the 'cracked' software may make one complicit in the distributor's offending, specifically by way of 'counselling and procuring' or 'conspiracy'. The distributor's offending may include the kind of commercial copyright infringement that is criminalised.
There is no loophole because a work released in object code form only — without the Corresponding Source — is not released under GPLv3, even if you say it is. GPLv3 only requires them to also provide whatever source came with it False. Providing the Corresponding Source is compulsory (§6 as pointed by @cHao). If they do not have access to it, it means the work has not been released under GPLv3.
The Free Software Foundation considers that the Apache 2.0 license is compatible with the GPL 3.0: This is a free software license, compatible with version 3 of the GNU GPL. But not compatible with the GPL 2.0, though: Please note that this license is not compatible with GPL version 2, because it has some requirements that are not in that GPL version. These include certain patent termination and indemnification provisions. The patent termination provision is a good thing, which is why we recommend the Apache 2.0 license for substantial programs over other lax permissive licenses. But what does it mean when the FSF says a license is &quot;compatible with the GPL?&quot; It means that the other license and the GNU GPL are compatible; you can combine code released under the other license with code released under the GNU GPL in one larger program. All GNU GPL versions permit such combinations privately; they also permit distribution of such combinations provided the combination is released under the same GNU GPL version. The other license is compatible with the GPL if it permits this too. GPLv3 is compatible with more licenses than GPLv2: it allows you to make combinations with code that has specific kinds of additional requirements that are not in GPLv3 itself. Section 7 has more information about this, including the list of additional requirements that are permitted. So what can you make of this? The FSF considers these two licenses compatible and it also means that when you combine code under these two licenses, the effective obligations that will apply are these of the Apache and GPL combined, including source code redistribution. But why are the compatible? Is the fact that the FSF says so enough? We can check what the Apache Software Foundation says on the topic: The Free Software Foundation considers the Apache License, Version 2.0 to be a free software license, compatible with version 3 of the GPL. The Software Freedom Law Center provides practical advice for developers about including permissively licensed source. Apache 2 software can therefore be included in GPLv3 projects, because the GPLv3 license accepts our software into GPLv3 works. So irrespective of the deeper why, they tend to agree and as they are the authors of the respective licenses, this carries some weight. But wait, this is not true the other way around as the ASF goes on: However, GPLv3 software cannot be included in Apache projects. The licenses are incompatible in one direction only, and it is a result of ASF's licensing philosophy and the GPLv3 authors' interpretation of copyright law. So in a nutshell, the FSF considers that the terms of the Apache license are compatible with the copyleft terms of the GPL 3.0. The ASF agrees, but the copyleft terms of the GPL 3.0 are not compatible with the permissive terms of the Apache 2.0: a combination of the two would have to be copyleft.
Just because newer versions of jQuery are available under one license doesn't indicate what license(s) older versions are available under. With permission of all copyright holders, the license can be modified. However, it does require the permission of all copyright holders. You would have to see the license terms distributed with jQuery 1.2.1 to see what license(s) that particular version is under. However, the GPL doesn't impact you in this case, since the library is dual licensed. As the recipient, get to choose the license that you wish to comply with. In this example, you can choose to comply with either the GPL license or the MIT license. Since the MIT license is easier for you to comply with, you simply need to conform to the terms of that license in your application.
The website owner brings in an expert programmer who testifies that the user cannot have gotten to a certain part of the site (or download, etc.) without having clicked to accept the terms of service, and that this document they're holding is a true and correct copy of the terms of service as of that date. That's evidence in favor of the site, and an adverse party has to have stronger evidence in order to overcome it. If the person didn't save a copy of the terms themselves, they'll have a hard time on this. Then the other party's attorney tries to discredit the programmer by asking questions like "how do you know there are no bugs in the software which could have allowed somebody to reach this without agreeing to the terms of service" etc. Apparently, some sites don't require users to click indicating agreement. If the company has significantly changed the site, terms of service, etc. since the time the user registered, and doesn't keep any copies of old versions around, and admits this, they'll have a hard time enforcing an agreement (as they can't produce a copy of it). If the user kept a copy, the user might be able to present that. It's up to the finder of fact to decide what to believe and how much weight to give the various witnesses' testimony.