While answering this question, it was pointed out to me in the comments that software that is improperly licensed (in that case, by violating another license) causes its own license to be cancelled out, thus rendering it practically unusable until fixed by the copyright holder.The context of the question was a project licensed under CPOL that infringed on GPL code by including it despite the CPOL's no-commercial-use (and thus, non-free/libre) restriction - thereby not complying with the GPL's copyleft.My first assumption in that case was that one could still use the CPOL-licensed project if they removed the GPL-code from it. I now believe that assumption was incorrect.So, my question is: if I want to include in my code an open-source project (project A) that infringes on the license of another project (project B), am I still infringing the copyright of project A if I remove the code belonging to project B? If so, why?
Am I infringing copyright if I use an improperly licensed project?
licensing;copyright
no, you're not infingingif A infringes on B which it includes, then they do not have a right to distribute combined work and combined license on A is null and void. However, all other (noninfringing) parts of A are still legal to distribute under As license, so you can take just those noninfringing parts and use them under As license (or include them in your code, whose license is compatibile with As license)