Ask HN: A company used my source code for their product. What can I do?

Context:

- My source is a library that this company shamelessly copy/pasted into their product (whose source is also publicly available) without even giving me credit.

- This library is a core component of one of their (I would go so far to say it IS one of their) products.

- My source is publicly available BUT it's not licensed, hence it's still considered under exclusive copyright (see https://choosealicense.com/no-permission/)

- Both I and that company are in the EU.

Normally I would never enforce anything like this but we're talking about a company that was funded using public funds (Horizon 2020) and is now making money from basically selling my library.

I want to make money out of this. Any suggestions on how I should proceed? Thanks.

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...

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.

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.

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.