copyright intellectual-property internet
Would changing the medium of disclosure of code change how and whether copyright is enforceable?
<p>I recently encountered someone that wrote a paper including 100 pages of pasted (computer) code. When I suggested that the pages of code could be better uploaded and made freely available on github.com (a public open platform where people upload code to share, and can specify a license for the code) as it is common practice.</p>

<p>He answered that due to copyright he could not do that. How would disclosing code printed on paper be different from disclosing it on a web page?</p>

<p>The relevant difference is that github.com is a public open platform, while the hard copy paper would presumably be available only to a small number of intended recipients (e.g. a teacher in a coding class), for a purpose consistent with "fair use."</p>

<p>If the hard copy version were, for example, posted on a billboard in a public place the way they publish newspapers in China, as show below, it would be equally problematic from a copyright perspective.</p>

<p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/waz0l.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/waz0l.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>

<p>It might be me who wrote the code and I gave permission to publish it on printed paper, but not the permission to publish it in an electronic medium. That would be one obvious situation. If I have the copyright, I'm absolutely free to allow some kinds of copies but not others. </p>

<p>There is quite outside of law the possibility that this person doesn't <em>want</em> to publish on GitHub and came up with some lame excuse. If you prove that there are no copyright related reasons, he may come up with the next lame excuse and eventually admit that he doesn't <em>want</em> to publish on github - in other words, you'll get nowhere. </p>
