I am contributing to a library that is licensed under the MIT license.In the license and in each class file it has a comment at the top saying:Copyright (c) 2011 Joe Bloggs <joe.bloggs@example.com>I assume that he owns the copyright to the file, and can change the license of that file as he sees fit. If I contribute to the library with a new class entirely write by me, can I claim copyright of that file. And put:Copyright (c) 2011 Petah Piper <petah.piper@example.com>at the top?
MIT and copyright
licensing;copyright;mit license
I'm not a lawyer, but the answer is yes. Copyright holder is the person or entity that can claim right to having created a piece work, or to whom such right has been transferred. The MIT license is not about transferring copyright, but about granting legal right to use the (copyrighted) work as stated in the license. If you write a class, you have the copyright to it, even if its actual use depends on third-party work.Once you add your class to the software package and distribute the whole package, the package has multiple copyright holders: the original authors, and you. You are allowed to distribute the parts from the original package because the MIT license allows you to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software.