
Ask HN: A company used my source code for their product. What can I do? - chpmrc
Context:<p>- My source is a library that this company shamelessly copy&#x2F;pasted into their product (whose source is also publicly available) without even giving me credit.<p>- This library is a core component of one of their (I would go so far to say it IS one of their) products.<p>- My source is publicly available BUT it&#x27;s not licensed, hence it&#x27;s still considered under exclusive copyright (see https:&#x2F;&#x2F;choosealicense.com&#x2F;no-permission&#x2F;)<p>- Both I and that company are in the EU.<p>Normally I would <i>never</i> enforce anything like this but we&#x27;re talking about a company that was funded using public funds (Horizon 2020) and is now making money from basically selling my library.<p>I want to make money out of this. Any suggestions on how I should proceed? Thanks.
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charlesdm
1\. Are you willing to invest the money to go after them? Good lawyers are
expensive (think hundreds of euros per hour)

2\. Courts generally move slow. It might take years before you have a positive
judgement. You will likely need to sue in their jurisdiction, which puts you
at a disadvantage because you do not know the language and legal procedures.

3\. And this is the most important one: even if you get a positive judgement,
the company is likely to be a limited liability company which can declare
bankruptcy.

Did they set up an SPV (read: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special-
purpose_entity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special-purpose_entity)) for
this project, or is this a larger company with stable revenue and profits that
has done this?

If at the end of the day you can collect €150,000 (as an example), you might
go and collect from someone with no cash in their account. They can and will
declare bankruptcy. Then you're out of pocket legal fees, with no way of
recovering them, and with no compensation.

Consider this before you decide to sue.

It might be easier to just sell them the tech for a reasonable amount of
money. I would not threaten to "expose" them with the H2020 programme as this
might take away their source of funding -- it makes it less likely they will
buy your tech.

I would reach out with a friendly email, telling them you noticed they used
your library, and that you are aware they received funding because of it.
Offer to sell them the library for a reasonable amount.

~~~
murukesh_s
IMO, reaching out to them with a neutral tone (not overly friendly) is the
best approach you can try. If they are not responding after reasonable number
of (and sure it's been reached) attempts, you could try either legal options
or try other options like to sell the same product as a competitor and/or
openly shame the company.

------
meh2frdf
What are you hoping to achieve? If it’s to screw them for as much money as
possible speak to a lawyer who can advise you on the best strategy for that.

If you want a small/reasonable amount of compensation and failing that, you
want them to cease using your code, I would just talk to them. Put together
what your licensing terms are and then simple case of pay or stop using. This
the path I would recommend, and as long as the fee is reasonable, I (as
someone who has to deal with this sort of thing in my current role) would
simply pay, as it the normal cost of doing business.

The reality is that this is likely the fault of a nieve developer, not the
deliberate action of the organisation. Aggressively threatening to sue etc is
typically overkill and the sort of behaviour that causes legal teams then to
restrict developers and prevent them sharing their code etc.

------
MrGilbert
Go find a good lawyer. The funding under the H2020 programme is usually
granted only on projects that do not produce a "ready-to-go" product at the
end of the project. It should be in a prototype-state.

If you claim that your component IS a major part of their product and service,
chances are that the European Comission might take a closer look on it.

However, you'll need a long and steady breath, as we are talking about months
and years until sth. happens.

Your best option at first might be, as pointed out by others, to approach them
and seek for a license agreement.

------
itronitron
You'll need to hire a lawyer, assuming you don't want to go work for the
company directly. Nolo press has a book on patent, copyright, and trademark
that would probably be a good overview [0] although it is US based. Good luck!

0\. [https://store.nolo.com/products/patent-copyright-and-
tradema...](https://store.nolo.com/products/patent-copyright-and-trademark-
pctm.html)

------
eb0la
1\. Decide clearly what you want: be ready to negotiate. 2\. Gather evidence.
3\. Get professional counseling (usually that means lawyer up). 4\. Decide
what you want and DON'T WANT to do. The latter is much more inpoetant than it
seems. 5\. Get counseling again. Is the plan feasible? How? Refine the plan
6\. Act

Hacer news is not a good counseling source: you get what you pay for.

------
bryanrasmussen
Where in the EU, anyway I'm guessing you should go talk to a competent lawyer
in your country, that's free.

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anoncoward111
I believe you would need to threaten to sue, or sue. That costs time, money,
and/or a lawyer's time, which costs a lot of money. Additionally, you might
not win.

Shitty/unethical companies do this a lot. They find clients and they pay
engineers to make everything work ASAP.

Your code was a convenient way to fix everything with plausible deniability.
I'm sorry for this, and I hope you do win if you sue!

If you were in the US, I would like to take a case like this on for reasonable
legal rates.

Sadly, I can't obtain a law license without first paying $140,000 in mandatory
tuition :) Hmmmm....

~~~
matt_the_bass
> Sadly, I can't obtain a law license without first paying $140,000 in
> mandatory tuition

If you’re willing to live in Wyoming during law school, U of W offers free law
school to anyone that gets accepted even those from out of state. The campus
is super cute in a small town. If that is your thing, it’s a good deal. My
brother in law took this route and he LOVED it. He moved from the east coast
and plans to stay. He even convinced is girlfriend (from the east coast) to
move there and now they’re married with kids.

~~~
zeroego
Do you by any chance have a link to back that up? I went to U of W's website
and they did not mention anything about free tuition.

~~~
paulcole
They in fact mention the opposite:

[https://www.uwyo.edu/law/admissions/finances/](https://www.uwyo.edu/law/admissions/finances/)

~~~
matt_the_bass
Oh wow! I guess they changed their policy. Thanks for finding that!

~~~
murukesh_s
It might have been a scholarship or something.

~~~
matt_the_bass
At the time it may have been a scholarship the all students received. I
remember it not being the case for other programs if study.

------
_frkl
Have you talked to them? What did they say if you did? Management might not be
aware this is happening.

This here might be a quick-and-dirty attempt to stop them, at least
temporarily: [https://writing.kemitchell.com/2018/09/02/Killjoy-
DMCA.html](https://writing.kemitchell.com/2018/09/02/Killjoy-DMCA.html)

Written for the US, but shouldn't matter all that much in practice.

------
m0llusk
It might make more sense to outsell them. Advertise your library as being used
in a successful commercial product yet better supported by the original
developer which is you.

This idea that you own intellectual property is questionable. If someone hears
your story or song or sees a picture you drew or downloads some source code
then that has escaped into the wild and is no longer controlled. Given how
much effort leads nowhere at all it is a kind of gift to be valued in this
way.

Instead of trying to own things that are conceptual and cannot be owned it
makes more sense to control release and advancement. Get people to pay up
before any source code can be downloaded, and once the designs or code or
whatever is out there then offer more and better to the highest and best
bidders.

------
erkkonet
You say shamelessly but it could also be "cluelessly" (which doesn't excuse
the company in any way). When I interview candidates, one of the questions I
ask is if they know anything about licenses and if they can describe
differences between for instance MIT and GPL. In my experience a surprisingly
large number have no clue of the implications on a product and use
code/libraries without considering the license. Either way, it's prudent to
have someone review projects for this kind of liabilities before shipping
anything.

------
stagas
You should contact them and offer them to license your code to them and
negotiate on a price, since they are already using it. You could also be
proactive about it if you are interested in collaborating with them to
continue improving on that library for a salary, since you are the author and
the one with the know-how of things. People can be reasonable, try the
respectful and honest approach first. They probably missed the fact that the
code didn't come with a permissive license and they just added it by mistake.
It can happen and doesn't necessarily mean they were being malicious so
they'll be willing to make a deal with you.

------
ThePhysicist
May I ask why you made this source code publicly available but didn't put a
license on it? What was your motivation?

In general, using unlicensed software code poses a large risk for any serious
company (corporations even use specialized software to check the license of
every open-source project they use), so you might be able to convince them to
buy a proper license from you or stop using the code. If they won't you can
take legal action.

~~~
jf22
Having some public code out there is good for attracting attention from
employers.

~~~
craftyguy
That doesn't excuse not picking a license for it. explicit > implicit...

~~~
knewter
the fault is with the person who used unlicensed code. OP did nothing wrong if
he wasn't explicitly choosing to permissively license it. sounds from his
reaction that he wasn't. that's ok.

~~~
craftyguy
Sure, but if you leave your house door wide open, it's still not your fault if
someone comes right in and takes stuff, but you certainly make it easier for
them to do so. Picking a license is easier than trying to defend an unlicensed
work in court..

~~~
boomlinde
_> Picking a license is easier than trying to defend an unlicensed work in
court.._

Are you speaking from experience here? Whether it has a blanket license or not
has absolutely nothing to do with its status as a copyright protected work.

Quite to the opposite, having a blanket license should make it harder to
determine whether its use constitutes an infringement on the copyright or is
permissible by the license.

There are plenty of reasons not to give your work a blanket license. For one,
you might want to share an idea without necessarily giving anyone access to
use your work directly, or you may want to present the work publicly for
exposure so that interested parties can license it individually.

~~~
craftyguy
> For one, you might want to share an idea without necessarily giving anyone
> access to use your work directly, or you may want to present the work
> publicly for exposure so that interested parties can license it
> individually.

And there are licenses for this. At the very least, a 'all rights reserved'
would have been better than having _nothing_ specified.

> Whether it has a blanket license or not has absolutely nothing to do with
> its status as a copyright protected work.

I never said it did. My point is, you are not helping anyone by not explicitly
licensing things. You might know what rights exist if no license is specified,
but not everyone does. I've seen terrible advisers and lawyers say 'well,
there is no license and the source is there, so it is "open source" and fair
game'. having an explicit license of rights would help to discourage all but
the really dense folks from abusing it.

~~~
boomlinde
_> And there are licenses for this. At the very least, a 'all rights reserved'
would have been better than having nothing specified._

Legally, that phrase doesn't mean squat anywhere in the world. A copyright
notice is not a license. Stating that you own the copyright to a work is not a
license. It also has no bearing in the sense that you can say "all rights
reserved" and still unwittingly give people implied license to use the work
for, say, reading it by sharing it publicly.

 _> I never said it did._

You said that it would be easier to defend it in court if it was licensed. I
argue on the other hand that it should be easier to defend in court if it's a
clear cut copyright infringement rather than a matter of interpretation of
some license, whether the license is at all enforceable and whether it's a
copyright case at all and not a matter of contract law. Granting people an
explicit license to your work adds a lot of moving parts.

 _> My point is, you are not helping anyone by not explicitly licensing
things. You might know what rights exist if no license is specified, but not
everyone does. I've seen terrible advisers and lawyers say 'well, there is no
license and the source is there, so it is "open source" and fair game'. having
an explicit license of rights would help to discourage all but the really
dense folks from abusing it._

I think that someone who is dense (or more likely, unscrupulous) enough to use
someone's work without a license to do so is "dense" enough to ignore the
terms of a complicated license. We actually see that all the time, for example
GPL licensed software being used in ways that don't comply with their license.
The "open door" really happened already at sharing the code publicly at all.
There will always be people that just don't give a shit.

------
weliketocode
Agreed with everyone who's saying reach out to the company and/or lawyers.

I hate to sling negativity on the internet, but you posted code online and are
upset that someone is making money off of it.

Again, I could be way off base, but you come across in a similar fashion as a
patent troll looking for a payday.

------
wnkrshm
How can you prove that they plagiarized your source code? Do they keep an open
repo?

~~~
desdiv
Yes, the company keeps an open repo:

>...their product (whose source is also publicly available) ...

