Is it legal for someone to try to pass of my website as their own as long as they've kept the same MIT license?

Question

The source code for my personal website is publicly visible on GitHub and hosted live with GitHub Pages. Back when I was creating this site, I didn't really understand the implications of copyright law too well and gave it an MIT license under my name. I also have a clear copyright notice in the footer of my website.

Yesterday, I discovered that someone else forked my repository on GitHub, changed the repository name to be under their name, and has been editing my site content to try to pass it off as their own, even changing the footer to claim it's under their copyright and leaving many of my blog posts published on their version of the site.

I filed a DMCA takedown claim with GitHub, but I'm wondering whether I am within my right and what steps I should take to protect myself in this particular case and future ones. So my question:

1. Has the user done anything illegal if they've kept my original MIT license?
2. What license should I use to protect myself in the future?

Answer 1

The text of the MIT licence is as follows (with the disclaimer elided as not relevant):

Copyright (c) {year} {copyright holders}

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" [...]

The second paragraph clearly says that any copies or "substantial portions" shall carry the copyright notice.

[...] changing the footer to claim it's under their copyright [...]

By removing your name from the copyright and substituting their own they have violated the license and hence your copyright.

Furthermore, as an author you have a moral right to have authorship attributed to you. Exact recognition of this right under law depends on where you are, but something as blatant as this is probably a violation regardless.

Answer 2

IANAL, just a programmer with an interest in legal rules.

Due to the very permissive nature of the MIT license, no, it does not appear that anything illegal has been done. Specifically, the section

to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software (emphasis mine)

grants everyone the right to modify your code and share those modifications, provided one includes the license. Since this person has included your license (including your copyright notice), they have followed the conditions of the license and are able to share your stuff. Legally. Ethically, I still think its ****.

This might be a good starting point in selecting a license (note the Modification column). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_free_and_open-source_software_licenses

The CC-BY-SA license family, as mentioned by Ron Beyer in comments is on this list, for example.

TL;DR: You unfortunately granted a more permissive license than what you wanted/needed to. This was a BadThing(TM), analogous to giving too broad of access rights to a method or class. Determine your desired permissions, then select a license that matches what you'd like to grant.

Answer 3

The thing that they did wrong is to claim copyright for their modified site. Whatever the license is, you have the copyright for everything you have written. If the only changes they made were changing your name for theirs, that is not something that creates copyright at all, so in that case you would still be the sole copyright holder. And if they removed the MIT license or removed your name from the license, then their use isn’t licensed.

Unfortunately for you these are easily fixed.

If your goal was to permit potential employers to see it: I put things into a private location and send employers a link with permission to download the code for evaluation. My current employer did that. No need to give the world free access.

Answer 4

The MIT license gives them a royalty free license to copy and distribute your copyrighted code, so long as they comply with the terms of the license (e.g. Including the license in their own release)

So literally copy pasting your code to make a website, and then find/replacing your name/details with their name/details is fine.

What would not be allowed is if they infringed on a trademark of yours. But I don't see that occurring here. Ill have to see their source code to be sure

Answer 5

It's not your website, it's theirs.

They built it from your code.

Yes, the code is yours, but you granted permission for anybody to freely do that, with minimal conditions. They only have to include the same license and acknowledge the original copyright(s) in their own license.

You allowed this when you licensed your work. You may change or remove the license on any future copies of the work that you publish, but you cannot change or remove the license on this copy or any copies that stem from it (which is likely to be all of them, unless you maintained a totally disconnected separate version and don't cross code between them).

Your DMCA takedown can be challenged, and a challenge is likely to be successful. Going further would require a lawyer, though they will probably say the same thing as this - you made a mistake, next time, choose your license with more care.