If a person uses your code can I claim its mine!
Archives Forums/General Discussion/If a person uses your code can I claim its mine!
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| I wrote some source code and lost my pen? |
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| lookie here. I can edit my posts too! Isn't this silly? edit: original stuff deleted sonce it no longer made sense! |
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| in response it was weeks late and very puzzling to figure out. |
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| you mean "He" will have trouble persuing legal options DOnt think he did, he will find it very easy to persue leagal options, because you've admitted taking his name off his distrabutable replacing it with yours, and then distributing it yourself. so Im assumming I can legally put my name on his executable (since he agreed!) so I have done this No. Thats IllegleYou have the right to try and force him to put it back Ps WHy isnt this in general? |
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| Sorry I made a mistake, it should be in general, I will try to pay more attention next time. |
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| I'm not a lawyer, but I've seen one on TV. :D When you write a program for another individual or company, then unless some other agreement is made, that individual or company actually owns the rights. You essentially sell your rights for a payroll check or a fee. The fee in your case is credits in his program. He failed to uphold his end of the agreement and therefore the rights to the code you wrote revert back to you. But that's only for the parts you've written. You still have no rights to anything anybody else wrote, nor to any modifications he might've made to your code. So if you are distributing the program without his permission, you are breaking copyright law. The best you can do is get a court order to force him to remit payment, i.e. put your name back in the credits, or to quit using the code you provided him. Ultimately, it comes down to just what the code is, and how much it is worth for either of you to pursue legal action. However, even though he might not ever pursue legal action against you, it still probably wouldn't be advisable to redistribute his program without permission. If down the road, there is an opportunity to do some real work for real money, you might lose that opportunity if the person fears you might take his program simply because you coded part of it. |
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| I would not stoop to his level, If anyperson sent me code I would not publish or steal it |
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| I am putting my name back on his executable for the part I wrote. And then you are redistributing that executable which you have no rights to. In essence, you have already stooped to his level. |
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| What would you do if you spent ages writing some code for another guy, he promises to give you credit and credit is what you only want, some months later the credit you agreed on disappears mysteriously! Whatever provisions are in the contract! It was a private email exchange, several months later when I complained about my credit being removed he responded by publishing my source code at a public forum. If there are any provisions in this exchange that could legally be considered a contract, then it's legally binding. As the programmer I have copyrights Not if you surrender them to a third party. OH and I got no money so how would I pay him if required by the courts? Depends on the country. Usually they will repossess all your property and sell it at an auction. should I spend $45,000 enforcing it only to have his open source program re-appear at another site. Yes. If you want to defend your rights, that's exactly what you should do. I seriously doubt that after he's lost his house to pay for your legal fees, he's going to fuck with you again. |
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| keep it coming |
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| I would ask, what's so important about this code? What did it actually do? Are you 100% sure that the code is exactly as yours and not based on yours? Do you have proof that you sent the code to him in the first place?And is it really worth the trouble/time/expense of taking someone to court? I would say just learn from this experience and don't do it again without disclaimers and evidence. BTW did you post on the forum that the code was made public on stating clearly that the code was yours? Was there a response from the original poster - either privately or on the forum? |
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| You should have signed a contract! |
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| no response since I need a coffee break, my eyes are getting tired and I dont understand the post anys. |
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| Basically what FlameDuck said. When you wrote this software under contract and did not explicitly reserve your rights, then the code AND the copyright are entirely "his" and you have surrendered all your rights of use and distribution. Depending on the country you live in, the only possible difference to working as a regular employee for a software company - where everything belongs to the company but not to you - is that you MIGHT still own the copyright. In Germany, for example, you simply cannot lose your copyright (unless you work as an employee, then you never had it). However, you would usually transfer ALL rights of use to the buyer, which basically renders your copyright useless for you. We call this "Urheberrecht", wich rather translates to "creator's right" than "Copyright". Copyright is the official translation, but misleading, since it does not reflect the original meaning but rather represents the rights of use and distribution, which are not the same. Anyway. You must be VERY specific about your terms and conditions in legally valid and binding written form the next time you take on a project for somebody else and make sure that the contract explicitly covers all your interests. However, if you don't have the money to sue, then even the best contract would be worthless. |
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| If your case is good enough then some lawyer, somewhere will take it on a free basis (if there is a good chance of getting money from the other guy). |
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| That's a typical story, has happened to lots of us. You have to see what you can get out of this. Not much point in spending a fortune unless you are going to be able to get it back. My advice: Move on! If you can write good code, you will be able to find another project. If the code is yours as you claim, your best option is to licence it as GPL so anyone can use it and compete with him. Make sure that you keep all records relative to the matter, so you can prove that he breached his side of the contract by refusing to have your name in the credits. But don't distribute a hacked version of his program, because then it might be you that will have to compensate him. |
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| ok guys point very respectfully taken. |
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| Why don't you beat him up? You need to go to his house and have a good scrap over it. |
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| No sorry that is not the sensible thing to do. |
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| o_O Charming. |
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| ;-) Mark has been having problems with a hacker on this site maybe you could talk |
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| Well, glad I sorted that one out. |
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| Hey puki, Maybe you and I could be like a Hacker Police. We could operate like the Russian Tax police, Using door bargers and trunctions. |
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| How many people are going to want to hack other peoples software after recieving a beating from the Hacker Police, The soft approach isnt working is it? |
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| I'm a 'social engineer'. |
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| Social engineering is a collection of techniques used to manipulate people into performing actions or divulging confidential information.[1] While similar to a confidence trick or simple fraud, the term typically applies to trickery for information gathering or computer system access and in most cases the attacker never comes face-to-face with the victim. So you are a bad guy? where did you say you live? |
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| Well, it means many things. I'm good at 'becoming' someone else - it can be a bit of a habit for me - almost an urge. Sometimes I see imaginary 'sticks' and I find those sticks - to begin with I don't know where they are, I just have to find them. Hacking and social engineering are not necessarily bad - how do you think "Mitnick" got caught? |
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| Anyone else also interested in recruiting for the Hacker Police? You will recieve 1. Stab proof vest 2. Door barger 3. Numchuka's |
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| Sometimes I see imaginary 'sticks' and I find those sticks - to begin with I don't know where they are, I just have to find them. Have you ever found them? Anyone else also interested in recruiting for the Hacker Police? Do I get a badge? |
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| oK I forgot what i was going to say so I said as above again |
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| YAWN... I am 12 and all hormonal.... YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWN! |
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| it was like a dream |
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| look, waving your willy around like a large trout won't fix things... Learn and move on eh? You got burned, take what you have learned and never make the same mistake again. Write your own competing product and bobs your aunty. If you are as good as you claim, then surely your product will end up far superior? |
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| Remember Marks rules of conduct :-) |
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| Are you "Gavin Turner"? |
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| Have I broken a rule? If I have then I'd like to know what. |
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| http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=49197 |
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| So no, I haven't broken a rule. I didn't swear and I was civil. Thanks for clearing that up :) |
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| What's this:? http://software.wizz.googlepages.com/emulator2001.exe |
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| If your case is good enough then some lawyer, somewhere will take it on a free basis (if there is a good chance of getting money from the other guy). I'm just going to repeat what dynaman said before this thread degenerated to testosteroney ePenis measuring. Because it's relevant to the situation at hand. I had a mate who ripped me then told everyone I ripped him and was harrasing my girlfriend so I jumped in my car and went round to his work and beat him up at work, It was easy and no lawyer fees. You're right! Being sent to prison for violence is definitely the way to resolve this! How silly of me. how do you think "Mitnick" got caught? Because he wasn't a real criminal. Frankly I'm surprised it took the FBI so long to catch him. Oh and the notion that Shinomura is a "white hat" is at best ignorant. I cannot realease the source code, since the new code I wrote has a unique way of multitasking the CPU with the GPU, I think its never been done so accurately before so I will not even discuss how I did it. Well you're entitled to your opinion, but I think I can safely say that, yes - it has been done before. If I realease my source code as GPL he will steal everything, he would just incorperate my BETTER WORKING code into his program. Sure. But guess what? You'll then have documentation that he's in violence of a written, and legally binding contract, and you can sick the EFF on him. No cost to you. How does that sound? HELL WILL FREEZE OVER BEFORE I EVER RELEASE ANY SOURCE CODE AS GPL Listen to what Lucy says. He makes a valid point. Breaking the law to prevent crime is like having sex to become a virgin again. |
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| Why did you edit all your posts Gav? The original posts were fine. Now this thread makes no sense. |
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| If a thread doesn't go the way you hoped, you shouldn't just destroy all of your posts. |
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| This thread will live on in the memories of those who read it. We Will Know. |
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