[Spinball]

Originally Posted by Marco van Herwaarden

Using the law "as an excuse" costs us a lot more energy then simply ignoring such laws, so in my view you don't really have a point here. Also authors are always free to wave their copyright and let their code be reused by others. If an author can not upkeep his modification(s) anymore, he always has the option to allow another coder to take over. This has happened before and if the author wishes so, then we will always try to support such a request as good as we can.

On a personal note: You are barking at the wrong tree. Try to covince the coders to release their work as a community product free of copyright claims, targeting the vB.org staff is useless as we have no say over the coding written by someone.

No, you're missing my point completely. As the people responsible for running the site you are in a position to (as you have written above)
* encourage absent authors to wave their copyright and let their code be reused by others
* encourage appropriate coders to take over expired mods
* convince coders to release their work as a community product free of copyright claims
I think (hope) I'm targetting exactly the right people.
If you'll stop with the defensive posture for a moment and consider what I'm suggesting.