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