| http://www.oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly/ask_tim/2001/codepolicy.html |
| |
| *O'Reilly Policy on Re-Use of Code Examples from Books* |
| |
| Bruce Epstein, author of /Director in a Nutshell/ (out of print) and |
| Lingo in a Nutshell <http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/lingonut/>, who is |
| now working as a part-time editor for O'Reilly (he is editor of Colin |
| Moock's recently published ActionScript: The Definitive Guide |
| <http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/actscript/>) sent in the following |
| question: |
| |
| "What is our policy with regard to programmers incorporating code |
| examples from books into their work? I get asked this all the time." |
| |
| The short answer is this: |
| |
| You can use and redistribute example code from our books for any |
| non-commercial purpose (and most commercial purposes) as long as you |
| acknowledge their source and authorship. The source of the code should |
| be noted in any documentation as well as in the program code itself (as |
| a comment). The attribution should include author, title, publisher, and |
| ISBN. |
| |
| As is often the case, there's a longer answer as well. Bruce made it |
| really easy for me to put this response together, since he forwarded an |
| unofficial reply on this subject that he'd sent to the FlashCoders |
| mailing list. What appears below is based on his message. (Hey, anyone |
| else who wants to send the answer as well as the question to Ask Tim can |
| make my job a lot easier :-) Thanks, Bruce.) |
| |
| As per the copyright notice in our books, O'Reilly reserves all rights |
| to the material in the book, including the code examples. This literally |
| means that you can use the example code all you like, but you can't |
| publish or redistribute it without our permission. In reality, we are |
| comfortable with any reasonable "fair use" of the code, and you can |
| assume permission is granted without contacting us. The threshold of |
| what is reasonable (fair use) depends on a number of factors. First, if |
| the book is published under an open source or open publication license, |
| you can use the code examples without any obligation to us. Otherwise, |
| use the following sanity tests: |
| |
| 1. |
| |
| If the code is incorporated into a software product, Web site, or |
| Web service, is the product, site, or service a commercial |
| venture? We don't object to commercial ventures, but if someone is |
| looking to profit from our work (or that of our authors'), and the |
| use is substantial, we may want to consider a license fee. (Send |
| licensing queries to permissions@oreilly.com |
| <mailto:permissions@oreilly.com>.) |
| |
| 2. |
| |
| Is the O'Reilly material incidental to the entire product? Are you |
| using only a small excerpt? For example, you can't publish a |
| CD-ROM of code examples from O'Reilly books without our explicit |
| permission. But we aren't going to worry if you use a routine |
| taken from our books as part of a huge software project, in which |
| the borrowed code is incidental. |
| |
| 3. |
| |
| Does the work compete with O'Reilly? For example, if you are a |
| book publisher, you can't use anything from our books without our |
| permission. |
| |
| 4. |
| |
| Is proper credit given? Such credit would include a statement |
| specifying the source of the material, such as "Derived from |
| Example 10-2, /ActionScript: The Definitive Guide/ by Colin Moock. |
| Copyright 2001 O'Reilly & Associates." Note that giving credit |
| does not insulate you from prosecution if you improperly use |
| copyrighted material! |
| |
| 5. |
| |
| Does your use fall within fair use provisions of copyright law? |
| (Academic research, commentary, etc.) For example, you don't need |
| O'Reilly's explicit permission to post a snippet of code on a |
| mailing list if you are pointing out a bug, asking a question, or |
| answering one. We especially like it when people answer questions |
| by pointing to our books, quoting from them, and citing their |
| examples, as long as they acknowledge the source! |
| |
| Acknowledging the source is particularly important. Bruce didn't |
| mention this in his posting to FlashCoders, but I know that he |
| personally was bit by this one. Someone was routinely answering |
| Lingo questions on a mailing list by supplying examples from |
| Bruce's book, without acknowledging the source (and leading people |
| to believe that the poster had written them). |
| |
| We put the code from our books online because we want it to be used. |
| (Who wants to type it in?) That's why we make it available in lots of |
| ways: for download from the Web (all examples are linked from the book's |
| catalog page on /oreilly.com/), in our CD Bookshelf products, and in our |
| new Safari online service. |
| |
| If you are interested in licensing O'Reilly book content as a third |
| party, send your request to corporate@oreilly.com |
| <mailto:corporate@oreilly.com>. |
| |
| --Tim |