Releasing a unique hack mostly using other people's stuff

[tamarian]

Originally Posted by Erwin

That case has nothing to do with this issue.

In that case (and this is my understanding of it) AT&T was distributing an open source Unix piece of code (?OpenBSD). Berkeley copied and used it but did not include the copyright notice that indicated that AT&T wrote part of it. The court stated that Berkeley must include the AT&T copyright notice in the files.

Scripts released here however cannot be assumed to be open sourced just because no copyright notice is present. The case basically states that open source code, althought free, still retains copyright of the author and the notice should remain.

Mind you, I could be wrong in my interpretation. Disclaimer: as per my previous post - this is not legal advice.

You are wrong in your interpretation , and I also disclaim that I am not a lwayer (IANAL)

This has exactly to do with AT&T not having any copyright notices on their source code. And AT&T distributing the source code to universities and having it published in educational books etc., that rendered it public domain.

AT&T had to add the copyright notice, and Berkly had to do likewise, but they earned the right to use it, provided they maintain the notice. But the key point was that AT&T failed in asserting their copyrights, and preventing further release of BSD, and the main point was due to distributing the code without a copyright notice. Note that even public domain source code can have a copyright notice on it.

There are other angles in that case, but since then, everyone knew the value of indicating what copyrights and license they whish to claim on that code and clearly refrence it in the source code, to avoid having it considered public domain.

That's why even if you think you're protected, include the copyrights on the headers just in case, and don't take anything for granted, why risk it..