throwaway150 4 hours ago

Yes, if the licensing terms are unclear, to err on the side of caution, it is best to assume "All rights reserved" by the authors of the software so you don't accidentally violate the authors' rights. And then hire a lawyer to sort this matter for you.

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Fnoord 4 hours ago

It used to be like that, yes. If you didn't mention the license, it was in public domain. Those times are long gone though.

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  • throwaway150 4 hours ago

    > If you didn't mention the license, it was in public domain.

    I don't think this has ever been the case. If a license is not mentioned, it is always "All rights reserved" by the authors of the project, by the Berne convention (1886).

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    • comex 3 hours ago

      However, the United States did not join the Berne Convention until 1988, and prior to 1978 it did not automatically grant federal copyright when a work was created; instead you had to register your work with the Copyright Office in order to receive federal protection. There were also some state-level protections at the time that did not require registration, but apparently they weren't very strong.

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    • fhdkweig 4 hours ago

      While I don't know if license and copyright are the same thing, the film Night of the Living Dead was famously accidentally added to the public domain due to a forgotten copyright notice.

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      • mod50ack 21 minutes ago

        They aren't the same thing. Under US law pre-1989, publication without notice would lead to a loss of copyright, but publication WITH a copyright notice, that is, publication of a copyrighted item, meant all rights were reserved (unless licensed).

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      • whstl 3 hours ago

        That's because the US was not part of the Berne Convention until 1989, so before that U.S. works often had protection only if certain formalities were met (like registration or notice).

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      • throwaway150 3 hours ago

        Wow. I didn't know that. Looks like this is a very US thing. I looked up now and TIL that US adopted the Berne convention as late as 1989. I'm surprised. So this movie released in 1966 didn't have default "all rights reserved" due to Berne convention. But most European countries, like 80%, had adopted the Berne convention by 1925. So when software was developed in Europe they automatically got "all rights reserved".

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      • compass_copium 4 hours ago

        I believe that was a forgotten renewal of copyright status.

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      • wang_li 3 hours ago

        Copyright is a right held over the ownership of a piece of IP. A license is a permission slip that allows you to exercise actions that would otherwise be reserved by copyright. There is no requirement for a license. It's not a state of a piece of IP.

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