Is it considered stealing if you use codes from another website?

Question

A debate I'm having with a friend on MSN. Is it considered "stealing" if you go into the webpage source and copy off bits of their coding and use it as your own? Please no smart --- remarks! Thanks :)~

Answer 1

I would say no, as long as you understand what you are copying. There are a million ways to write code, but only a handful of ways to write it well. So in regards to web code (HTML), you wouldn't really be taking anything that isn't widely available on the internet in the form of tutorials or free code snippets. If you are stealing a design or bandwidth, then that's another story; that is stealing.

In short, if you can view the source then there is probably nothing secret about it and it's fair game, just know what you are copying.

Answer 2

Stealing means you take something that doesn't belong to you. Websites don't have permission from the copyright owners and don't pass on royalties because there's no royalties-generating money transaction. Therefore the investment made by the companies and their associates and employees who made the product is not recouped, and their copyright rights are ignored. However, there's an obvious flaw in acting as if copyright violation is the same type of theft as stealing a car. If you steal a car from general motors, there's one less car in detroit. If you steal an episode of the simpsons, fox still has the episode. So copyright theft can be seen as a form of nonmonetarised consumption rather than theft - if companies can find a way to monetarise this new pattern of consumption it will be adopted. Newspapers are often free online, which is a major problem for their business models. Most bewspapers are barely surviving financially, and non-monetarised consumption (with permission) is the root cause. Some have set up paywalls, but since these can be bypassed by simply using the free website of another newspaper, they haven't been all that effective (especially since most newspaper copy comes from the same wire services anyway, especially as the cashflow problem bites). One example of a company that's working to overcome this problem is Spotify: artists get royalties, nonpaying consumers get adverts, paying consumers don't. The artists and the distribution company get paid out of ads and subscriptions (ironically the old funding model for newspapers). However since Spotify faces competition from free torrent sites, they're in the saem position as my local video shop: they can only sell me a DVD if I'd rather fork out the cash than go to the hassle of downloading the movie. I'm not paying for the product, I'm paying for (convenient) access to it. Wasn't that always the way though?

Answer 3

It is technically stealing, but unless you're grabbing large chunks of code or pieces of something novel (like some super spiffy Javascript function) it would be:

A) hard to prove you didn't come up with it yourself
B) unlikely that the person will care

Use common sense and your own moral compass. If when you're grabbing the code you feel like you're taking more than what you could easily learn on your own then you shouldn't copy it.

Answer 4

No, it's not. Though it depends on who you talk to. Some would say yes, but coding is a free source, so if you know the programming language and how it works, then you'd be able to do the same thing yourself. So using bits of code from others is not stealing. Ignore Colinc's comment, that's a completely different scenario altogether.

Answer 5

I doubt it... The only code you see, with the exception of some javascripts, is just simple HTML code which just controls the layout of the page and cannot be claimed as original coding. Any code worth protecting cannot be seen in the source.

Answer 6

This is copyright infringement, so yes. Considering recently the Supreme Court issued warrants on a 12 year old girl for copyright infringement ($150,000.00 possible fine), take it seriously.

Answer 7

Of coarse not. Infact its encoraged because you can learn alot from the scource of other websites. All the document is, is html and its the browser that turns it into what you see. Theres nothing stopping you from seeing that original html though.

Answer 8

yes if you don't credit them.... it is considered stealing. just make a section you your pge giving credit to site where you got your grphics, coding, whatever..anything you did not come up with or make yourself

Answer 9

No, you can call it inspiration. Anyway there are not many different html codes

Answer 10

well kinda but dont post it like if its games u dont understand i always use walkthroughs