A common question I am asked by clients is, "hey, can I just go ahead and use this ----?"  Unless there is a blanket license sufficient to embody the desired "use," such an answer is always expensive to find out, and rarely can the answer be stated unequivocally.

There is another way.  Ask permission.  Most folks out there would be tickled as all get out that you would like to use their (non-commercial) stuff, and will give you consent to use.  Consent is a 100% defense to infringement claims, and in my experience typically easy to come by.

On the question of a copyright notice, don't let the absence of one encourage you to think the work is not protected!  For modern works (post-1978), copyright vested automatically upon fixation in tangible media.  For published works after 1988, the validity of a copyright was unaffected by the failure to attach a notice.  Many people reasonably sophisticated in Copyright will routinely affix notice as a matter of course, and the more sophisticated an owner, the more likely they will give routine consents to non-troublesome uses.

Accordingly, notice simply doesn't matter.  The presence of a notice does not mean that consent won't (or hasn't already) be given.  The absence of a notice doesn't mean that consent would not be necessary.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: MIME :arning at charm.net > Sent: Wednesday, September 01, 1999 9:19 AM
> To: squeak at cs.uiuc.edu
> Subject: Re: Squeak and Java, Morphic Graphic effects
> > > On Wed, 1 Sep 1999 15:01:36 +0200  > Torsten.Bergmann at phaidros.com wrote:
> >With this tool it is easy to transform java class files back
> >to java source files. (the compiled java file includes all=20
> >class and method names, so this is possible). Maybe it is=20
> >usefull for some of us to reverse engineer freeware java=20
> >programs and reimplement better versions in Squeak.
> >
> >-Torsten
> >
> >* Lake - mirrors a picture in a waving lake=20
> >  http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Hills/5407/xlakecloud4.html
> > Well, the first one had a small copyright symbol, so I'm not sure it =
> qualifies as freeware. I wonder if similar sorts of algorithms are =
> published in a book somewhere (I'll check through mine).
> > Cheers,
> Bob
> > > > 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: MIME :arning at charm.net > Sent: Wednesday, September 01, 1999 9:19 AM
> To: squeak at cs.uiuc.edu
> Subject: Re: Squeak and Java, Morphic Graphic effects
> > > On Wed, 1 Sep 1999 15:01:36 +0200  > Torsten.Bergmann at phaidros.com wrote:
> >With this tool it is easy to transform java class files back
> >to java source files. (the compiled java file includes all=20
> >class and method names, so this is possible). Maybe it is=20
> >usefull for some of us to reverse engineer freeware java=20
> >programs and reimplement better versions in Squeak.
> >
> >-Torsten
> >
> >* Lake - mirrors a picture in a waving lake=20
> >  http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Hills/5407/xlakecloud4.html
> > Well, the first one had a small copyright symbol, so I'm not sure it =
> qualifies as freeware. I wonder if similar sorts of algorithms are =
> published in a book somewhere (I'll check through mine).
> > Cheers,
> Bob
> > > >