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I know this slightly in the legal realm but its unclear who owns the code if you put proprietary code on github or bitbucket in a private repository.

From Bitbucket we have:

By submitting public (non-private) Content to Avantlumiere for inclusion on your Website, you grant Avantlumiere a world-wide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, modify, adapt and publish the Content solely for the purpose of displaying and promoting your account or repository. If a repository is marked as private, these terms do not apply.

The question of course is what terms do apply to private accounts.

In theory the code should be safe if a license header with copyright information is on every file... right?

I am not asking for legal advice and will not hold any one responsible.

durron597
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Adam Gent
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    "code should be safe if a license header with copyright information is on every file" - lol – fredley Sep 21 '10 at 11:43
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    http://tosdr.org is useful for the main website terms of service, though BitBucket isn't in their list. – Nick T Jan 06 '14 at 14:56
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    "If a repository is marked as private, these terms do not apply." what is there hard to understand in this sentence? – Mike Szyndel Jan 13 '14 at 22:51

2 Answers2

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From GitHub:

We claim no intellectual property rights over the material you provide to the Service. Your profile and materials uploaded remain yours. However, by setting your pages to be viewed publicly, you agree to allow others to view your Content. By setting your repositories to be viewed publicly, you agree to allow others to view and fork your repositories.

As noted in the BitBucket TOS you linked, BitBucket's parent company similarly has no claims to code that you upload into private repos.

mipadi
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  • What about this though: "End User hereby grants Atlassian a non-exclusive license to copy, distribute, perform, display, store, modify, and otherwise use End User Data in connection with operating the Hosted Services." – Garbit Nov 08 '12 at 12:36
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    Storing the code (potentially) requires copying, distributing, etc. as listed. It is the common for attorneys to write TOS in a manner which favors the broadest possible interpretation - even if the original intent is not to exercise that interpretation. If you think the wording makes it _possible_ for the service provider to violate your intentions, you have to weigh how much _never_ doing so matters. Of course, if the terms allow arbitrary updates to terms, it may not matter what today's terms are. – BrianCooksey Feb 12 '13 at 01:02
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Perhaps this has changed recently, but I think that BitBucket is quite clear with this (from their ToS)

Each party retains all right, title and interest in its data, information and intellectual property rights, and nothing in this Agreement is intended to transfer or diminish such rights.

Mr.Uyan
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rainecc
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    I think it would be better if this was printed somewhere outside of their terms and conditions in plain English as well. Something like, "What's yours is yours and ours is our own" or something to that end. I'm being a bit tongue-in-cheek here, however, I did have to resort to Google and Stack Overflow to try to figure this out, which must be saying something (or reflect my dumbness ;) ) - thanks – Philip Murphy Apr 03 '12 at 23:38
  • Yeah, I agree, they could make a feature of that policy, loud and clear... – rainecc Apr 04 '12 at 11:00
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    @PhilipMurphy I felt equally stupid asking the question but I have pretty much accepted that its better to double check with the **smart** masses than guess. – Adam Gent Sep 09 '12 at 01:41
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    I am always wondering what would happen if your direct competitor would say "these guys violate our patents/ideas/whatever" and an American judge would give them right to view the code in search for violations - they easily get hands on our solutions... And I think it is easily doable under American IP law. – Marcin Gil Oct 23 '12 at 12:07
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    These Terms of Service have changed. Update as of 12/7/2018: The new [Atlassian Cloud Terms of Service](https://www.atlassian.com/legal/cloud-terms-of-service) now state: **5.1. Using Your Data to provide Cloud Products to You. You retain all right, title and interest in and to Your Data in the form submitted to the Cloud Products...** – David Ruiz Dec 07 '18 at 16:30