Case Study: Intellectual Property John is a web developer. Like many web develop

Question

Case Study: Intellectual Property John is a web developer. Like many web developers he sometimes copies code samples from websites. Anyone can do this. Simply right click in a page, select "View Source" from the popup menu, and then copy the HTML/Javascript right out of the page. Of course, copying HTML from a page is not the only way to obtain HTML code. There are countless books and websites that provide sample and example code. Many web sites incorporate "source code" from other sites, from books and from example sites. Over time, John builds a library of source code that he incorporates into the web sites he builds. One day a client calls and says, "Our main competitor is threatening to sue us. They say that our web site contains their code. They say that they can prove it because even their comments are found in the code being used on our web site. We paid you to build our site. Did you steal the code from them? What are you going to do about this?" Is John liable? Did he do something wrong? Illegal? Dumb? This is essentially a copyright issue. But it is also an ethics issue. What is your opinion on John's practices? Provide a well reasoned and clearly written statement of your take on this. Be prepared to defend your thinking.

Explanation / Answer

Answer:

Yes, John is liable for this issue.He had stealed the code from various sources and has used it without doing any modification with his own idea.So he has done wrong by stealing the code and using it as same as the original.This is a copyright issue.Copyrights is original work of the author.John should have atleast changed the comments and modified the code to an extent without using the original or else he should have used the code as a reference to write his own code without copying it as such

John is using illegal practices in developing the websites.This is an unethical practice.He should use his own idea,knowledge and skills to write a code on his own and deliver it to the client.He may refer the other websites or sources for learning how to use the code

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