Source Code theft

[gabrielmuller]

Hello,

I have high suspicions that a team of developers I hired on upwork is using my source code in their own apps. The source code in question was paid by me to them on this platform. Upwork's terms and conditions are extremelly clear on who owns the intellectectual property: it's 100% the client's.

The app just behaves and looks very very similar. Even the bugs are the same.

The team is saying that they have not used my source code to create their app. 

Who can give an answer if the code has been stolen or not? Do you guys know of independant third parties that can anylize both codes and quickly give their "verdict" without going straight to court?

Thanks,

Gab

[prestonhunter]

I have no interest in hiring somebody to analyze any source code.

The very idea that a developer or team of developers you hired to create an app is publishing a competing app is somewhat preposterous.

I would not continue paying freelancers to work for me if I thought they were in any way simultaneously accepting my money while also creating a competing product.

Make sure you obtain all source code files associated with the project. Have your new project manager verify this. Make sure you are able to use the files and compile the app without the original team. Then block all access that the original team has to the source code and servers. Going forward, work only with a new team of developers.

[laherz]

It's unlikely that you will be able to view their source code unless they allow you to. If the application is compiled, you would not be able to view the source code(exeptions apply such as reverse engineering*)

Either way, this is more of a legal matter. If the issue is serious enough, you would need to contact a lawyer.  Please do keep in mind, developers re-utilize code all the time. So unless it's straightforward that they stole an entire idea of yours, I would give up on pursuing this any further. 

[jasonrush]

Gabriel,

While you can certainly find 3rd parties that can do some type of review (whether it's comparing HTML output and functionality of a web application, interface design and functionality such as http://android.moneymanagerex.org/shree.html, etc), I do agree with Michael that this is primarily a legal issue and you will want to contact a lawyer before deciding how best to proceed.

Jason Rush

[bobmc_rmm]

>>using my source code in their own apps. 

Other clients do not know they have the same problem you detected.  Unfortunately, there is no mechanism or process to prevent source code theft when it is done by a hireling.

Many programmers have the belief that "Anything not nailed down is mine, and anything I can pry up is not nailed down"

Suppose that abstractions are created in the developement of a client's application.  Would it be ok to reuse those?  For example,  a Logger class could be used anywhere.

[sharonliu]

Well, if their app is taking off, you could ask for a share of the profits. They didn't mean to steal the code, you know, they were pretty desperate. I mean, some of these programmers have no originality, and don't have any big ideas. Do feel sorry for them.

[b7ed75d0]

I have a freelancer that I hired here, **edited for Community Guidelines**, who only had minor work on my private plugin, which work I ended up not using because it kept breaking the code -  who is keeping my plugin and claiming he has full right to keep and use as he wrote code for it. I demanded that he completely discard my plugin to no avail. I have paid over 30K for this plugin to a couple of devs and it is my intellectual property and here is an Upwork dev that not only provided bad quality work, took my money for work that I could not even use, gave me 1 star as a review and now is even openly telling me he has all right to use my code.

I also have suspicions that he published my entire site publicly on guthub - and of course I can't even prove that. Really very upsetting. Beware people. Protect your property. 

[AveryO]

Hi Milena,

I'm sorry to learn about your experience with the freelancer. I checked your contract and it looks like this was a contract from last year. For your future contracts, please know that you can avail of Upwork Payment Protection, and/or request for mediation assistance should any issue arise in a contract. 

If you need help on your current contracts, please don't hesitate to reach out here, or directly to our Customer Support Team.

[pallvim]

Hello Gab,

I feel really bad to hear this. With my past experiences as product owner with fortune companies, I can share you the best practices which may be helpful to you not just to handle the current situation, also in future as well:

- Hire a product manager/technical lead

- He will be responsible to create task and allocate task to team in pieces.

- Post that he will receive code from team/developer and submit the code on source safe like git or similar.

- Post complete development, teh code will be integrated and compiled into package as complete application

These steps will help you to meet your objective and resolution to your curent problem.

As you are already in mid of application development, so at this stage changing development team will be a risk not just in terms of delay but also in terms of competitor of your idea.

In case you need any detailed discussion or assistance, please feel free to connect me.

My best wishes are with you.

Regards

Pankaj Munjal