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Nicking code stuff

Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Yesterday I decided to make a new site (like a magazine rather than my current "personal" one). And I was messing about and just copied and pasted a load of code from a "proper" site and changed it until it was how I wanted.

Is this legal?

I like to do web stuff but am too lazy and not motivated enough to learn all the complicated code.

Comments

  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    It's not illagal, not as far as I'm aware.
    As long as you don't just copy and paste someone else's code. Not that that is much fun anyway.
    Most people do this, not many people can be bothered to learn the complicated stuff.
    Some skullfuck HTML for years and no one notices.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I once tried to do my own website, but i got so confused by all the HTML stuff, i had to give up!

    This is nothing to do with it, but, K-T, why have you got rid of that cute hello kitty fairy on your signature! that was sweet!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    It sounds like you are breaching the copyright of the author of the work, so ethically you are in the wrong. It is unlikely that you would be challenged for it, or that if you were that it could be proved that you have done it.

    HTH, IANAL.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Originally posted by * k-t *:
    <STRONG>Yesterday I decided to make a new site (like a magazine rather than my current "personal" one). And I was messing about and just copied and pasted a load of code from a "proper" site and changed it until it was how I wanted.

    Is this legal?

    I like to do web stuff but am too lazy and not motivated enough to learn all the complicated code.</STRONG>

    The legality of it depends on what exactly you "borrowed". If you've cut-n-pasted some HTML tags (say for a set of nested tables) and removed all the actual "content" then there's very little that you can be challenged on, in that you can see a design that you like and try and imitate it, but no-one can prove that you copied the exact code (unless it has some obvious markers, like comments for eg). If you've copied the content as well though, you are technically violating intellectual property laws, unless you mark that section of content as copyright of its respective author - even then, you should attain the author's permission to copy the content before doing so.
    If you've copied a script then again, technically, you are violating intellectual property laws, but if you change a few variable names and so on, there's nothing that can really be pinned on you.

    Hope this helps

    CD <IMG SRC="biggrin.gif" border="0" ALT="icon">


    [Edited for fcuking awful splelling]

    [ 14-04-2002: Message edited by: CodeDragon ]
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    It's the best way to learn new stuff. <IMG SRC="smile.gif" border="0" ALT="icon">
    HTML/JavaScript is (or might as well be) open source and, therefore, nickable.

    Have fun making the site

    The only thing it's ropey to nick is content.
    Or cracking and thefting a PHP/PERL script...

    [ 18-04-2002: Message edited by: mr turbo head ]
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Thanks for the tips, I have changed the code so much and deleted a lot so you would not even know where it had come from.

    It is a useful thing to do (copy and pasting parts of code) to teach yourself new things.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    i do that quite a lot...at first i was getting the whole source code, then i started changing it a bit, then a bit more, then some more etc...

    after a while you know which bits do what if you change them, so really ya just learn from it.

    as for being legal or not, i dont know or care lol

    ~dappa
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