This is an interesting thread -- I'll attempt to answer on behalf of NI (please forgive me if I start speaking a little legalease). If you have a more specific question or use case feel free to contact
copyrightagent@ni.com.
Ownership and distribution of snippets is governed by the Software License Agreement (the "SLA") that accompanies LabVIEW just as any other VI you create would be. Legally, snippets should be treated much like any other VI, since snippets include a copy of the depicted VI. The image contained in the snippet is a derivative work of the underlying VI. As a consequence, copyright ownership of a snippet is determined, at least in part, by the copyright ownership of the underlying VI, and use of the snippet (including distribution) is subject to the consent of the copyright owner of the underlying VI.
For those who are really interested, a copy of the current SLA that applies to the LabVIEW software can be found here:
http://www.ni.com/legal/license/. In particular, Section 13 of the SLA sets out certain requirements for distribution of "Authorized Applications" developed using LabVIEW.
NI does not claim copyright ownership in the original elements created by a customer in such an application, nor does NI claim ownership over the customer's application as a whole, assuming that it constitutes an original work of authorship by that customer. Copyright ownership in such original elements developed by a customer belong to that customer. On the other hand, a snippet, like any VI application, includes many copyrighted and proprietary elements that were developed and are owned by NI. For example, such elements include pre-existing nodes or wires (and the code that underlies these nodes/wires), subVIs, the appearance of displays or other user interface elements, run-time engine code, etc., as well as trademarked elements of NI such as the LabVIEW logo.
Andrey Dmitriev wrote:
Like a painter - when you have done nice artwork - who owns the copyright? Canvas or oil's manufacturer? No - its your artwork. The same with snippet from my point of view.
This analogy is close, but not exactly accurate. It is true that canvas and oil manufacturers do not own the copyright in an original oil painting made by a painter, this is due to the fact that no copyright interest exists in the underlying canvas or oils. In other words, the original oil painting is not a derivative work of the canvas or the oils. This is not quite the case in LabVIEW. A closer analogy in this case is to an artist that uses photographs (i.e. preexisting copyrighted pieces) to make a collage. While the artist who pieced together the collage likely has ownership over the original elements in the composition or arrangement of the collage, the original photographers retain ownership of the copyright of their photographs used in the collage.
Snippets, include not only images which are derivatives of the pre-existing code, but also include the underlying code as well – with much of the code being part of the LabVIEW development software. It is important to bear in mind that the snippet is a derivative of many preexisting works protected by copyright and other proprietary rights and that permission of the owner of such works is required with respect to use of the various pre-existing pieces that were used to create the snippet. Permission to use, and the terms and conditions of use and distribution of, the pre-existing pieces provided by NI as part of the LabVIEW development environment are set forth in the SLA.
In short :- the copyright for the snippet is the same as for the VI it depicts (and contains). This VI will contain elements owned by NI as part of LabVIEW and original elements owned by the creator of the VI.
Hope this helps,
SimonH
LabVIEW Product Manager
LabVIEW user groep 
