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Kenneth Eaton wrote:
>> By the way, is there any general guideline how
> reference/ack
>> should be made if I use it (and other files in File
>> Exchange) in my report? I suppose all those files are in
>> the "public domain", in which I just need to acknowledge
> the
>> source and the author without explicit permission from the
>> author him/herself isn't it?
> I think you're right that FEX postings are public domain,
> but I'm not totally sure.
I *am* sure: they are NOT in the public domain! "public domain"
has a fairly specific legal meaning, and since this is a matter
of copyright, the files do not automatically fall into the public
domain until 40 to 70 years after the death of the author
(exact duration depends on the country, with copyright protection
extending the longest in the USA, courtesy of "The Sonny Bono Act".)
In order for a file to be in the public domain, it is not enough
that the file be readily available, and it would not be enough that
there was no explicit copyright statement in it; it would not be
enough that no owner or year was given. In order for a file to be
in the public domain, it has to be a government publication (in some
countries such as USA), or the author (and anyone else who shares
copyright) must EXPLICITLY place the file in the public domain...
or copyright has to have expired (which takes a long time now.)
Basically if you look at the file and there is not *specific*
statement that "This code is placed in the public domain" then
the file is NOT in the public domain (copyright not having expired.)
And if the author makes even the -slightest- "reservation" as to how
the code can be used, then that reservation negates *all* statement
of the code being in the public domain. Code can only voluntarily
enter the public domain if the copyright holders explicitly release
ALL rights.
And because ALL rights have to have been released for code to be in
the public domain, then if it -were- (hypothetically) the case that
FEX contributions where in the public domain, then there would be no
legal need to give any citation what-so-ever (unless that legal
need was imposed by some other mechanism such as to avoid an
academic charge of "plagerism"). Code that is in the public domain
is free for ALL use with no attribution, as long as you don't claim
to have written it yourself. Modify the contents even the slightest,
though, and you can claim rights for the modified version for yourself.
What I would assume (without further checking) is that code from the
FEX can be used for private individuals for non-commercial purposes:
many countries have a "private study" exemption in their copyright laws.
Beyond that, even for internal use in a company where the code did
not get placed in a product, I would assume that copyright holds
and that the copyright status of the code would need to be actively
examined. And for any code going into a commercial product, if the
code author did not explicitly include a license permitting that use,
I would assume that such use would be an illegal "derived work" that
needed a formal copyright clearance before it could be used.
--
Q = quotation(rand);
if isempty(Q); error('Quotation server filesystem problems')
else sprintf('%s',Q), end
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