> First, backend website code is not protected by copyright because it's not... | Hacker News

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eurleif on March 23, 2012 | parent | context | favorite | on: I'm not good enough to work on open source softwar...

> First, backend website code is not protected by copyright because it's not published

Unpublished works are protected by copyright. http://copyright.cornell.edu/resources/publicdomain.cfm

smsm42 on March 23, 2012 [–]

But wouldn't you need to distribute for copyright protection to kick in? Copyright is exclusive right to distribute. If you just stole the code and keep it, you can be liable to various crimes, but I don't see how copyright infringement can be one of them.

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