What if someone published program on invalid license and then fixed it?
<p>I saw repository on GitHub where someone had LICENSE file as below:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Copyright year name</p>
<p>Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the &quot;License&quot;);
you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
You may obtain a copy of the License at <a href="http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0</a></p>
<p>Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an &quot;AS IS&quot; BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
limitations under the License.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I have read that Apache2.0 license must be copied into <code>LICENSE</code> file, and then the <code>NOTICE</code> file will contain exactly that what I showed above.</p>
<p>If the license was invalid at first time, then can someone say &quot;your code at some moment wasn't licensed, so I created repo with your code and added copyright on my name&quot;? And if license was fixed, then does still someone could do it, because &quot;law is not retroactive&quot;? If yes, what this poor man should do to have copyrights?</p>

<h2>It doesn't work like that!</h2>
<p>If the code is not properly licensed, you can not acquire a license for it. If you don't have a license, you can not use it. Usage without a license is <strong>copyright infringement</strong> and not allowed: <strong>the copyright is with the author, and only the author may make derivates or copies or allow them to be made by licensing it.</strong></p>
<p>You do <strong>not</strong> gain copyright by fixing a licensing error - in fact, you commit <strong>copyright infringement</strong> if you do not have a license, and <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1202" rel="nofollow noreferrer">providing wrong copyright management information is illegal under 17 USC 1202</a></p>

copyright licensing open-source-software