I don't know the original study in detail, but given my time on github I see a ton of 'projects' which are just small scraps of test code, heck even dot files.

I can certainly see why people don't bother putting a licence on these types of 'projects'.

However on all projects I've come across which are actually something substantial there has been a licence declared, so I'm wondering if this 'lack of licencing' is a 'real' problem or if it's just the result of github becoming a convenient dumping ground/backup for tons of small snippets/settings etc which used to just sit on people's harddrives.