Can I use this code in my own commercial projects? I am reading a programming book that was written by an author that is not around anymore and published by a company that also does not exist anymore. This is the book. When I load in the CD-ROM, I notice the README file. This is it: Programming a Multiplayer FPS in DirectX Vaughan Young 1-58450-363-7 Copyright 2005 by CHARLES RIVER MEDIA, INC. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or copied in any way, stored in retrieval system of any type, or transmitted by any means or media, electronic or mechanical, including, but not limited to, photocopy, recording, or scanning, or replication in whole or in part without prior permission in writing from the publisher. CHARLES RIVER MEDIA, INC. 10 Downer Avenue Hingham, MA 02043 781-740-0400 781-740-8816 (Fax) info@charlesriver.com www.charlesriver.com All brand names and product names mentioned in this CD-ROM are trademarks or service marks of their respective companies. Any omission or misuse (of any kind) of service marks or trademarks should not be regarded as intent to infringe on the property of others. The publisher recognizes and respects all marks used by companies, manufacturers, and developers as a means to distinguish their products. CHARLES RIVER MEDIA titles are available for site license or bulk purchase by institutions, user groups, corporations, etc. For additional information, please contact the Special Sales Department at 781-740-0400. Requests for replacement of a defective disc must be accompanied by the original disc, your mailing address, telephone number, date of purchase and purchase price. Please state the nature of the problem, and send the information to CHARLES RIVER MEDIA, INC., 10 Downer Avenue, Hingham, MA 02043. CRM's sole obligation to the purchaser is to replace the disc, based on defective materials or faulty workmanship, but not on the operation or functionality of the product. LIMITED WARRANTY AND DISCLAIMER OF LIABILITY THIS PRODUCT MAY BE USED ON A SINGLE PC ONLY. THE LICENSE DOES NOT PERMIT THE USE ON A NETWORK (OF ANY KIND). YOU FURTHER AGREE THAT THIS LICENSE GRANTS PERMISSION TO USE THE PRODUCTS CONTAINED HEREIN, BUT DOES NOT GIVE YOU RIGHT OF OWNERSHIP TO ANY OF THE CONTENT OR PRODUCT CONTAINED ON THIS CD-ROM. USE OF THIRD PARTY SOFTWARE CONTAINED ON THIS CD-ROM IS LIMITED TO AND SUBJECT TO LICENSING TERMS FOR THE RESPECTIVE PRODUCTS. USE, DUPLICATION OR DISCLOSURE BY THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT OR ITS AGENCIES ARE LIMITED BY FAR 52.227-7013 OR FAR 52.227-19, AS APPROPRIATE. CHARLES RIVER MEDIA, INC. ("CRM") AND/OR ANYONE WHO HAS BEEN INVOLVED IN THE WRITING, CREATION OR PRODUCTION OF THE ACCOMPANYING CODE ("THE SOFTWARE"), OR THE THIRD PARTY PRODUCTS CONTAINED ON THIS CD-ROM, CANNOT AND DO NOT WARRANT THE PERFORMANCE OR RESULTS THAT MAY BE OBTAINED BY USING THE SOFTWARE. THE AUTHOR AND PUBLISHER HAVE USED THEIR BEST EFFORTS TO ENSURE THE ACCURACY AND FUNCTIONALITY OF THE TEXTUAL MATERIAL AND PROGRAMS CONTAINED HEREIN; HOWEVEVER, WE MAKE NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, REGARDING THE PERFORMANCE OF THESE PROGRAMS.THE SOFTWARE IS SOLD "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY (EXCEPT FOR DEFECTIVE MATERIALS USED IN MANUFACTURING THE DISC OR DUE TO FAULTY WORKMANSHIP); THE SOLE REMEDY IN THE EVENT OF A DEFECT IS EXPRESSLY LIMITED TO REPLACEMENT OF THE DISC, AND ONLY AT THE DISCRETION OF CRM. THE AUTHOR, THE PUBLISHER, DEVELOPERS OF THIRD PARTY SOFTWARE, AND ANYONE INVOLVED IN THE PRODUCTION AND MANUFACTURING OF THIS WORK SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR DAMAGES OF ANY KIND ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF(OR THE INABILITY TO USE) THE PROGRAMS, SOURCE CODE, OR TEXTUAL MATERIAL CONTAINED IN THIS PUBLICATION. THIS INCLUDES, BUT IS NOT LIMITED TO, LOSS OF REVENUE OR PROFIT, OR OTHER INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF THE PRODUCT. THE USE OF "IMPLIED WARRANTY" AND CERTAIN "EXCLUSIONS" VARY FROM STATE TO STATE, AND MAY NOT APPLY TO THE PURCHASER OF THIS PRODUCT. Also, at the main source files, there is this: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Engine.h implementation. Refer to the Engine.h interface for more details. Programming a Multiplayer First Person Shooter in DirectX Copyright (c) 2004 Vaughan Young Does this mean I can use the code for my own personal gain, or can I just toss this book and the source code that I have been modifying for a while away? If I rearrange the code, would it help my case in making the copyright null? This means just swapping where functions are declared and/or renaming them. Also, I do own this book and the CD.
The code is copyrighted. You are not given any permission to use or copy any part of it, nor to create a derivative work based on it. There is no way for you to "make the copyright null". The code was copyrighted in 2005, and the copyright will not expire until 70 years after the death of the author, under US law. The period would vary in some other countries, but in no country that I know of will it expire in the next few years. That the author is dead, or the publisher out of business, does not change this legally. Someone, probably the author's heir, or perhaps whoever bought the remains of the publisher's business, will own the copyright. However, the ideas and programming techniques shown and discussed in the book are not protected, and you may use them freely to write programs, commercial or non-commercial. You need not even acknowledge the book as a source of ideas, although to do so would be nice. Of course, since the author is dead and the publisher not active, if you were to infringe the copyright by copying code from thsi book, there is a reasonable chance that no one would notice, but if someone did notice, the current owner of the copyright could sue you for infringement, and could perhaps win sizable damages. It would be safer to write your own original code using only the general ideas from the book. In future, do not ever assume that you can just take someone else's code (or other creative work, such as a book) and reuse it without permission, unless it is in the public domain, for example because it was published before 1923.
The web-browser game was copyrighted the moment it was created by the individual. It did not need a copyright notice to be copyrighted, or a TOS to inform you of copyright. The individual was fully within the law to claim infringement and demand you stop disturbing your mod as an unauthorized change to their game. They should have had a TOS up when they started distributing the game, but that's their choice. The developer could - or have their attorney - send their own legal "takedown notice" of infringement directly to you rather than Tweet about it or approach Google. Google's takedown and your "copyright strike" is different than your original copyright violation and involves Google's TOS - Google Chrome Web Store Developer Agreement | Google Chrome - regarding copyright violations of apps and code under distribution. By your use of the store, Google reserves the right to remove your extensions when there are ...violations of intellectual property rights, including patent, copyright, trademark, trade secret, or other proprietary right of any party,... And, the original game being free and your mod being free rarely matters in copyright law and in cases of infringement. That's something a court would decide on the case and in looking at precedent(s). ...can I get into legal trouble for this? You could be sued by the maker of the game in civil court; that's up to them. Google's recourse is to simply remove the mod from the store and possibly restrict your use of their service(s), according to their TOS. For more background, see the Law SE Meta post I have a question about copyright. What should I read before I ask it? .
My understanding is that here "derived from the program" means "created by modifying the source code of the program" and not "created by running the program". Certainly that is the way all users that I have heard of treat the matter. Note that a commercial program, such as a word processor, will be fully protected by copyright, but the maker does not claim to have any rights over documents written using it. "Derived" here seems pretty clearly to mean "derivative work" in the sense in which that term is used in copyright law. In copyright law "derived work" is a term of art with a definition specific to that field.
It depends on what you are selling to the enterprises. You could be selling just a licence to use the program, and retain all the rights on the source code. You could be selling the rights to the source code. For #1, the source code is yours and you can do what it pleases with it1. In fact many programs offer both an open-source licence (which usually forces the user to make its changes to the code publicly available) and a commercial one (which allows the user to keep the modifications of the source code for themselves). For #2, the source code is no longer yours so it is not up to you to decide what to do with it. 1I am assuming no other agreements imposing limits on those; for example that none of your contracts to your customers have a clause forbidding you from making the code available to the public.
The answer by Dale M. is correct, but a bit brief. "Selling" is not an exact phrase. What you do not want to do is to transfer ("sell") the copyright to the source code. If you did that, you would put yourself in legal danger because they now own the copyright to code that you use in other products, and can sue you for copyright infringement. However, you selling a copy of source code does not imply transfer of copyright in any shape of form. When you buy a copy of a book in a book store, the author's copyright is not transferred to you. Accepting this deal would put the other party in legal danger. Even if they have bought the source code, they still don't have a license to make further copies of it and sell those. This is why you need to license the software to them. In brief: Copyright grants the copyright owner a lot of rights. These rights are always licensed, not sold. The right that is relevant here is the right to create derivative works. A license is simply a contract between the two parties, describing a particular business arrangement in legally binding terms. If I were in your position, I would hire an IP lawyer to help drafting the license. But, basically, the license should say that you, as owner of the copyright to ABC software, grants XYZ company access to its source in its present form, and also grants XYZ company the right to create derivative works, but only for hardware platform DEF, and to create and distribute copies of their derivative work.
One cannot use the works of others unless one of the following applies: The copyright holder has given permission, usually in the form of a license, often explicit, but sometimes implied. The work is not protected by copyright. This can happen in several ways, but the most common is that the work is old enough that copyright has expired. In the US, works older than 1927 are currently out of copyright. So are some others, the rules are a bit complex. In many countries, if the author or creator died more than 70 years ago, the work is out of copyright. In some countries this is a different number, between 50 and 100 years. This is not likely to apply to a file distributed with current software. If an exception to copyright applies. In the US this would most likely be fair use. In the UK it would probably be fair dealing. In other countries there are a variety of exceptions that might apply, including personal use in some. AS a comment by Jen points out &quot;use&quot; here refers only to those rights protected by copyright, such as making and distributing copied, making nd distributing derivative works, and the like. (Displaying and publicly performing seem unlikely to apply.) Now lets consider the specific situation, and which if any of the reasons for lawful use might apply. License or other permission. There is no explicit license. Since the program is distributed to be run, there is an implicit license to make the sort of use of the file needed to run the program. If the documentation describes how to employ the file as part of running the program, there is almost surely an implied license to employ it in that way. There is not, however, permission to make copies unless that is needed to run the program. There is surely not permission to make derivative works of the file or distribute copies to others, even if you do not charge anything. Expired copyright This pretty clearly will not apply. Fair use This might apply, or might not. There isn't enough info in the question to tell, not even to make a good guess. If any use would be non commercial, that helps fair use a bit. If the use would be for a different purpose than the one the developers used it for, that helps fair use a lot. If the use of the file harmed the market for the program, or served as a substitute, that lean against fair use. without knowing what the file is, what it does, and how it might be used, one really cannot weven guess.
It would be copyright infringement. You had the copyright holders permission to make one copy of the song by downloading it. At that time, if you gave me a copy of that song, it could be argued that very, very little damage was caused because I just had downloaded that song myself with practically the same effect. Today, that argument is not valid anymore. So this is definitely copyright infringement. That's your question answered. I doubt that anyone would take action if you gave a copy to someone and it was found out. Making it available to the world for free download is another matter. That could easily get you into trouble; in the USA there could be a fine up to $150,000 without any proof of actual damages needed.
The MIT License (as distributed by OSI) does not include an attribution requirement beyond the requirement to include the copyright notice in any re-distributed copy including derivative works. The same is true of the description of the license as described in the Wikipedia article. If you sent back to the maintainer a modified version including your own contributions with an MIT license notice and your name in the copyright statement, that is a new work released under that license. The maintainer (or anyone else) may not lawfully use your work or incorporate it into a new derived work without complying with the license terms, which require retaining the copyright notice. By distributing the combined work using a copyright notice not including your name, it would seem that your license is being violated. You could contact the maintainer with a request that your name be included in the notice or your contributions be removed. If that is not accepted, you could use a take-down notice, or file suit. That last would involve significant costs, of course.