Source code theft:

If there's one thing about the Internet that annoys me, its people who "steal" code.
The Internet is a place where everything is becoming possible. Websites can do all sorts of things now, things that a few years ago weren't thought possible. There are some very talented scriptwriters out there, who write scripts for web pages that make them as interactive, fun, useful as they are. This site uses a number of such scripts. It may not be immediately obvious, but things like the "recommend a friend" feature is a script, written by someone else, not me, that allows me to spread the word about this site around. Even simple things like the counter on the home page, that tells you how many visitors have been to the site is a script, written by someone else, not me, that adds just a touch to a website. There is nothing wrong with using scripts someone else wrote, as long as you obviously have permission to use them. Not everyone who owns a web page is expected to be some super programmer and expected to be able to write all sorts of code. I cant, I admit I cant. I can play with JavaScript, PHP etc, but I couldn't write a complete page from it, and I never claim to be able to. I have no reason to. Websites are not my livelyhood, I make no money from this site. So why do people still insist on deleting copyright notices from source code in a lame attempt to fool people into thinking THEY wrote it.
The people who write these scripts do so for a reason. Maybe they make money from it, maybe it's a hobby. Often they will let you use these scripts, for FREE, on your site, and all they ask for in return is a simple credit in the source code, or maybe a small link on your site somewhere. That's not too much to ask. They could charge you a fortune for that script, if you cant write it, you will have to pay it, so why do people still steal code. Sometimes the writer makes money from this. Maybe it's a student, just trying to make some money on the side to get through school, or could be someone's lively hood, who spent a lot of time and money learning how to do it. The scripts they let you use for free are often intended to get their name out, in the hope someone else will see it and buy something from them. If you go hiding these credits, all you are doing is stealing from them, and preventing them from making money. You're not fooling anyone. I could list off a number of sites now, that have obviously stolen the scripts, because the rest of the site is awfully written and obviously the person has no idea what they are doing, but yet suddenly you come across a feature, that I know is using PHP, or Perl, or JavaScript, but yet you look at the source code, and there's no credit, copyright notice or anything. The owner expects me to believe they wrote it? Puhlease. I could list these sites off, but I don't want to end up in the middle of some legal dispute, as I don't know who the original author really was, but trust me folks, I know you are out three!

If you use some script, that someone has written and had the decency to offer you for FREE, the least you can do is give credit where credit is due. I have more respect for people who don't claim to be super writers, and give credit to those who write the scripts, than I do for those who try and make out they are, when they have really stolen it from someone else.
I spent a while once, a while back writing a script that generated random emails. It was nothing fancy, it wasn't anything special. Fairly easy to do, took a while for a newbie like me, but it worked. I then offered it for free on this site, idea was it trapped email crawlers in a never ending loop and slowed down spammers, since not much use now, but I have searched the web to see who got it, and a lot of places that did download it and put it on their site gave credit, but I found a few that had changed the way it looked slightly, and made out they had written it, but yet the code itself was identical to what I had wrote, even down to the spelling mistakes in the comments. Now I don't make any money from it, and I just left it, couldn't be bothered with the issue, but still seemed pretty lame, and if that were part of my lively hood, it would be so easy to prove I wrote it, and catch them.
So all you code stealers out there, quit stealing peoples code, you are not as sly as you think you are, give credit where credit is due, and quit ruining my life

Have a good day………..