<p>Suppose I've found a &ldquo;text&rdquo; somewhere in open access (say, on public network share). I have no means to contact the author, I even don't know who is the author.</p>

<p>What can I legally do with such &ldquo;text&rdquo;?</p>

<p><strong>Update:</strong> I am not going to publish that &ldquo;text&rdquo;, but rather learn from it myself.</p>

<p><strong>Update:</strong> So, if I ever see an anonymous code, article, whatever, shouldn't I even open it, because otherwise I'd copy its contents to my brain?</p>

[{'answer_id': 70795, 'author': 'warren', 'author_id': 4418, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/4418', 'pm_score': 1, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>As far as I <em>know</em> (without any legal training) - if you list the text or code or whathaveyou as "anonymous", you\'re OK. </p>\n\n<p>I believe that by listing it as anonymous you\'re indicating you do not know where it came from, but you\'re admitting you didn\'t create it as original work.</p>\n\n<p>Extending from that, you should be open to the actual author being able to prove they are the author, and changing your usage to reflect their name/license/copyright/whatever.</p>\n\n<p>You should check with an Intellectual Property lawyer for details and corrections to my understanding.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 70836, 'author': 'Hank Gay', 'author_id': 4203, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/4203', 'pm_score': 4, 'selected': True, 'text': '<p>IANAL: There is no license. The original author (whoever it may be) retains copyright and all the rights associated with it, and has not granted any explicit license to anyone to do anything with their work. Please do check with an actual lawyer versed in copyright, though, since it seems like there should be a way to use the text in your particular circumstances and (s)he would likely know what that way is.</p>\n\n<p>UPDATE: Copyright is chiefly concerned with (re)distribution; if you can read it, you\'re free to learn from it, although the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act" rel="nofollow noreferrer">DMCA</a> places legal restrictions on what steps you can take to be able to read it, e.g., you aren\'t supposed to use <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeCSS" rel="nofollow noreferrer">DeCSS</a> to read subtitles since that is a "circumvention of access control".</p>\n'}]
['https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/70762', 'https://Stackoverflow.com', 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/1764/']