Hello all. I've been considering various issues with copyrighting PHP code, and I'd like some feedback from some of the professionals here on the forum who make a living from their code.
I have worked on several PHP applications in the past which I have sold for profit to a few small companies. I have been working on another large project over the past year which is near completion, and I have some questions about copyright.
If I have actually written all the code myself from scratch, then I should be able to add my own claim to a copyright for the code, just as an artist or photographer would copyright a piece of artwork. But let's turn the tables and assume that YOU have written a large PHP based application and copyrighted it. I get your code and re-write a few of the functions on some of the pages, erase YOUR copyright, and put my own on it, then I resell what is basically YOUR work for my own profit. This isn't right, but is it legal?
If I were writing a stand alone application, I could write it using C++, then compile it, then sell the compiled version and it would be pretty much "copy proof" as the source code would not be freely available, and thus much harder to "steal". This application I have written must be (by design) fully web based. It runs on a linux box under Apache. If there were some way to "comple" PHP so that it is machine readable and usable under Apache, but not human-readable, I would be set, but as I understand the limits of PHP, in order for the code to function it must be saved to the customer's machine in human readable form.
Now, most of the potential customers of this application wouldn't know how to read the script in the first place, but there is still a very real possibillity that a tech-geek type employee of one of my customers may know what they are looking at and delve into the code out of curiosity, and potentially distribute it to competitors.
So how would one address this issue? If someone blatantly copies my code line-for-line and resells it under another name, and I find out about it, I'm sure I can pursue legal action - but what if they modify it ever so slightly first? Most PHP applications are distributed under the GPL, but there are many applications out there which are "commercial" software and must be purchased. How do the producers of these commercial software packages address this issue?
Sorry for the long post, but I'd really like to hear some constructive feedback on this issue, as I'm sure it's something many of us have at least considered in the past.
Thanks.