All works released in the United States are automatically copyrighted upon publication, to eliminate ambiguities. A notice within the work such as "Copyright 2023 Zorlun" would only act to signify who the copyright belongs to. The creator of the work is free to override standard US copyright law by specifying a different license within the work, such as Creative Commons.
Also, publishing all of the source code of a project does not actually make it freely modifiable under the law. The source code needs to be released under a license that would permit that, such as BSD or GPL. Otherwise, the code is also controlled by the copyright laws of the local jurisdiction. Such a license is designed to protect not just the creator, but also you, because it gives you the legal freedom to ask for compensation for the changes that you make.
I don't think you're in any danger, , but you might want to be aware of this kind of thing in general, since you're involved in modding code.
Zorlun is not based in USA, neither am I, for your information - most users on F95 are in USA, but USA is not the World
, and even if you used as "release location" the download site, well, Mega is based in New Zealand, so, you will have to check their law, not the one in USA
.
Additionally, there is the matter of enforcement. To enforce the copyright, you have to demonstrate it belongs to you, even more because USA does not differentiate between author (moral) rights and economic rights, in most of Europe (the EU) we do.
In Europe, one can transfer the economic rights, but will always retain the moral right of being recognised as the author, in USA can transfer all the rights (see the case of Stan Lee and his economic situation for a long time).
That is where indicating the copyright explicitly matters, and it is simpler than e.g. leaving a copy with a notary to confirm you were the first (which is a method in some countries in EU for books and could be extended to printed source code, but I am not even sure in which State in USA, if any, would be accepted).
It similar to the speed in registering a patent - in USA is first come first served, and if you do not renew a patent, someone can register it and use it, and they owe you nothing (famous case of a small game with the three weels).
The EU is a bit different, we put more emphasis, at least in principle, on the concept of "novelty".
Correct that publishing the source code does not automatically make it BSD, GPL or so on (which are all different, by the way, and there are tons of "open source" licenses), however, unless the license says explicitly that it is forbidden to modify it, you enter a gray area where, as you say yourself, it depends on the law of the country of release and country where the person is.
There are many differences, e.g. I am not sure now, but for many years the lenght of the copyright in USA and EU was different, in practical terms it was much longer in USA, because in EU was based on the idea of the author, in USA it was in practice to favour companies. Or the story about the different approach to OEM licenses and their sale and use.
That is why the software licenses for commercial products alwyas include explicitly the prohibition to modify it (in many cases, also of reverse engineering, since in most cases is in a non-modifiable format) and specifies the forum for legal disputes between the parties (typically, the one more favorable to the company), to avoid (better, limit, an agreement between privates cannot override the law of the country) the impact of the legal differences.
In reality, I admit I was just enjoying the conversation, all of the above, and your reply, in reality are useless in the case of Myriam and Zorlun
.
From one side he explicitly indicated in the forum that he does not have problems with people releasing mods and patches (all of which modify the code).
From the other, before I released the first ipatch I had asked directly Zorlun if he had objections, and he didn't, since I was not making money out of it - he cannot be involved in his creation and distribution, but that's it.
I appreciate your attempt to help, but I worked for years on sofware licenses and even negotiated specific ones
, ever read the entire Oracle licensing agreements ?
