Questions tagged [software]
For questions involving programming underlying computers and machines. Consider using the [open-source-software] tag if the question is about open source software or licensing.
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USA Employment Law: Job Search with Moonlighting
I am a Software Developer contractor but I also want to have my own side-hustle business. This side hustle business might contain programming, research or developing new software products. However, it ...
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Can ex-employer ask/require in a severance agreement that if I plan to disclose information about the severance agreement, I must tell them first?
Can a severance agreement ask/force an employee to inform the ex-employer if they plan to disclose the severance agreement?
My understanding is that the National Labor Relations Act allows me to share ...
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using external images of multiple different licenses in a single document-oriented project
I am working on a project to create (in PDF) letter charts for children for alphabet learning. This involves a number of different pictures from different sources (but mostly Wikipedia) and different ...
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Would it be legal to avoid Unity (Game Engine) licensing by having the end-user build the project
Is it legal (assuming US) if instead of paying for a proprietary software and accepting their terms and conditions for distribution, to require the user to own this proprietary software and use it as ...
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Difficult-to-find-license in Meta segment-anything OSS
I'm quite confused - like many others - with the license that Meta adds to the models' weights.
The segment-anything repository or even the paper (I read it) do not say anything about the weights i.e:...
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How did software copyright work in the US before 1978?
Prior to the Copyright Act of 1976 (which, confusingly, only went into effect in 1978) the copyright rules were different. One of the things that was introduced was that after the beginning of 1978, ...
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Is it legal to backdate monthly software license fees if you reactivate a license?
I live in the UK and use software from a US-based company. I currently pay a software licence fee of $150 every six months.
This covers access to support and access to monthly software updates, new ...
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What is the copyright status of this piece of code from 1976?
Back in 1976, Steve Wozniak of Apple fame published a computer program library in volume 1, issue 7 of Dr Dobbs Journal of Computer Calisthenics and Orthodontia (Running Light Without Overbyte), a ...
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Question concerning the legality of Software Patents
I have a question concering the public reveal of new patents filed by Nintendo Co., Ltd., and how such patents are legal given how general the concepts are, and how this would effect development of ...
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Firmware code written under GPLv3 was modified. What should be published? [closed]
The firmware for an embedded device (e.g., a toaster) is modified significantly. Algorithms are rewritten from scratch, the code is made compatible with different hardware, etc. The end (hardware) ...
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Is a "login timestamp" considered as personal data according to GDPR?
If software is saving the timestamp of the last login of a user, would that timestamp itself be considered personal data by GDPR?
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GDPR and privacy policy compliance for software used internally by customer company
We are developing software that are sold to and used by other companies. In the software, certain types of personal data, like name, email and phone number, can be stored when a user registers. The ...
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Does replacing the operating system on my laptop void my warranty?
I purchased a typical mid-range laptop in late March this year. It came with Windows preinstalled. As soon as I unpacked the computer I removed Windows and installed Linux. I have been using it ...
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I need to know if I need a privacy policy for a computer app [closed]
make computer apps using Winforms and such the apps that i make are computer side only nothing gets stored off the computer nothing gets moved anywhere else lets say i have an app that needs your ...
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Is it legal to change user agent?
Assume (hypothetically), I'm using jsoup to download certain news website in my public android app. When I don't change user-agent in jsoup it redirects me to another website.
Is it legal to change ...
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Is the usage of an OCR service causing copyright issues when a photo of a book page is analyzed?
Here's the scenario
A user takes a photo using an app from a book, which might have be copyrighted.
The app then uploads the photo to a cloud service in order to analyze it using OCR
The app receives ...
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Commerical usage of sentence-transformers/multi-qa-mpnet-base-cos-v1 [closed]
We are trying to use a HuggingFace Embedding model - multi-qa-mpnet-base-cos-v1 for an internal Large Language Model powered application. While reading the documentation it says (not verbatim):
For ...
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Closed source code theft prevention via license
Let's say I have an app stored as a closed source code (e.g on github) for which I have a software license in place (Apache 2.0), is this enough to prevent/prosecute an employee or just a random ...
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usage of the same applicationname
we are currently developing a mobile-App for Android and IOS and we would like to use a name for this application, that already exists: "YouTrack".
BUT of course our application has nothing ...
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Hackintosh vs. fair use
Note: Cross-posted from SE SuperUser to get thoughts from legal experts here.
Follow up question to Revisit the Hackintosh policy.
Use case:
I create a userscript (in a [licenced] Windows or a Linux)...
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Is it common for software licenses to, as written, technically prohibit normal and expected use of the software?
In Is distributing software that makes modifications to video games legal? an example snippet of a video game license is given, which reads:
You may not copy the Software (except as specifically ...
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Is it against the DMCA to use the recent implementation of the Windows XP's product activation algorithm if one has an XP licence?
The Windows XP's product activation encryption algorithm has recently been "cracked", and a software implementation that emulates the telephone activation question / response procedure is ...
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Is distributing software that makes modifications to video games legal?
Unlike most game mods (which are, to my knowledge, a distribution of a copy of modified game software), I'm writing a small desktop application which allows users to make their own custom changes (...
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Creating an application to streamline Dungeons and Dragons
I've been working on an application that would streamline the average Dungeons and Dragons 5e tabletop experience, and it only recently occurred to me that doing so may infringe on copyrights.
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Is there a body that assists in requesting source code from companies thay are required by license to release their codeass
In short, I want to have the source code of the kernel of a specific Android phone that is produced by a one specific reputable south Korean company.
They are using Android, thus they are obligated by ...
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Why do some licenses have a clause stating that one can't violate the law?
Example of such a clause in the Creative MLOpen RAIL-M dated August 22, 2022 used by runwayml/stable-diffusion-v1-5:
You agree not to use the Model or Derivatives of the Model:
In any way that ...
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Are licenses on "source available" products binding?
There are a number of companies which make their source code available in various public forums like Github or Gitlab. These products are not open source, but the source is available for public ...
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How does copyrights work for mobile/web applications?
If a mobile/web developer creates an application like Uber, then sells it to a company, and the company also wants the copyrights for the application, what happens if after few months another company ...
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Can we use images from Wikimedia Commons in a product that we sell?
Say we are creating an educational application that needs to use a number of images as part of its lessons. Since it would be prohibitively expensive if we had to hire an artist to create all the ...
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GPL: distribute compiled binary [closed]
Is it legal to modify GPL v3.0 content and distribute a binary of the remixed content without disclosing the modified source code?
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Ensuring Worldwide Legal Compliance for an App
When selling an app, developers need to meet the legal requirements of each country in which they sell the app.
In practice, this seems like an impossible task because there are so many different ...
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Does a YouTuber have any copyrights over a mirrored video?
On YouTube, it is common for users to upload videos that they have created or own the rights to. However, some users may attempt to avoid copyright infringement by uploading mirrored versions of ...
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Would it be theoretically possible to design a 100% legal ransomware where the user voluntarily chooses to encrypt their files and pay to decrypt them
Would it be theoretically possible to design a 100% legal ransomware where the user voluntarily chooses to encrypt their files and pay to decrypt them? (Seriously, I always wondered if it was possible!...
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Difference between a Software Developer and Software Consultant in Europe + Legal Responsibility for software use
Background information
I am currently working for an Italian company (Company A) as a freelance based in Italy: my service consists in developing a piece of software which implements a machine ...
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Does the software we use to write code affect the licenses we must use?
I am a junior software developer and found the licensing confusing, partly because senior devs around me have no idea either.
Below I explore scenarios where a software developer uses other software. ...
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Are there any cases that establish a precedent regarding software patching?
My question concerns the legality of "software patching", specifically making changes to the compiled code of an existing third-party software application in order to alter its behavior. My ...
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What is the legality of distributing free software that displays another website page after automated reformatting and editing
I recently noticed that local news sites are terrible in that they transfer ludicrous amounts of data, never stop transferring data, and load an obnoxious number of ads and pop ups. As a result they ...
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Do companies have a legal right to force you to use their server after you have purchased their hardware?
I have purchased several "Internet of Things" devices that, by default, come with an app that lets you turn it on and off. They use normal WiFi to communicate and are screwed into the walls ...
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Can a software include a list of deities/gods?
Consider a software that allows users to create profiles that identify the user. If this software includes and allows users to choose what god/deity they believe in (or their favorite god/deity), is ...
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Can I use the last name of a book author for my project
Suppose that a person has written a computer program that s/he wants to publish on GitHub using as its name the last name of a professor who wrote a book on a topic related to the computer program.
My ...
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Copyright, Binary Code, and Share-Alike Clauses?
I do extensive personal work in the modding/romhacking space of games. This space is about taking existing commercial games and adding custom content or features to them, generally through unofficial ...
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Must Apple facilitate transfer of app purchases from one user account to another?
A recent question addresses EU law allowing the resale of software licenses. I asked on that answer, “ Does this mean that you could transfer one-time or subscription purchases of apps from mobile app ...
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What is the definition of "substantial portions of Software" that is used in MIT License?
Text of MIT License is as follows:
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining
a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the
"Software"), to deal ...
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Is there a legal context regarding non-personal data retention for older SAS clients? [EU]
Can EU based SAS company keep non-personal data that what created by an former EU-based client (for example blog posts/)?
If yes for how long?
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Storing encrypted, copyrighted material on behalf of users
Suppose a web service offers users to store their media data, some of which may be copyrighted. The service would keep metadata separate from the content itself, and that content would be ...
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Does anti-discrimination law apply to software licenses?
Related: Can a software license validly restrict place of use, or impose restrictions on the type or purpose of use
As per the above thread, it seems like it is perfectly legal in the USA to attach ...
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Can I Create and Sell Another Virtual Machine Software for macOS?
I would like to know if I can legally create and sell a software that creates, opens, manages, and runs virtual machines for macOS.
I know that there are a lot of virtual machine software out there ...
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Is one free from legal responsibility if the intellectual property has passed the plagiarism check software?
A few examples:
Bob wrote a blog post and uses a plagiarism checker. The checker didn’t find any plagiarism. Does that protect Bob from copyright infringement claims?
Bob uses AI to generate a blog ...
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Why are app mods often illegal, but Chrome extensions are seemingly not?
It seems that app mods, such as for games, are generally considered to be derivative works and thus illegal. Chrome extensions, though, don't have the same reputation, even for the well-known ...
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Can I sell the file OR a print of a 3D model that I significantly altered?
I downloaded a freely available .stl file that is a fan-made model of a space ship from a well-known sci-fi universe. The fan posted the file under a Creative Commons - Attribution - Non-Commercial ...
