What is the differences between reusing code and theft of intellectual property?
I am trying to understand how reusing software programming code and theft of intellectual property by copying software code from another programmer without his consent is different.
What does code reuse mean? What does theft of intellectual property mean and how does it fit in with copying code from another programmer?
Is there a time when you can reuse programming code?
Theft of intellectual property doesn’t always apply. If you work at a company, another employee may have created code that you could reuse in your own project, which you typically can because the company owns the code. Not to mention the case where you create code and you want to reuse it in another project. That’s also code reuse.
I (and many other people with me) have published code on the Internet for other people to (re-)use. Most of the time, the license under which it was published makes it clear this was the intent of the programmer; sometimes, admittedly, you just hope the other programmer doesn’t mind. (Personally, I leave out a copyright notice but because I use comments like ‘When you use this code in your own project, make sure that…")
Just look for copyright notices and/or the license under which the code was published.