Hello pete!
Yes, source code can be and usually is copyrighted. For an explanation
of how copyright works, I can highly recommend the following site,
which provides a good overview of copyright (without specifying a
particular country's legal system):
http://whatiscopyright.org/
There have been some arguments that source code is not a creative
work, and thus should not be copyrightable. So far, this view has not
(to my knowledge) been agreed with by the courts. For a summary of the
argument, however, see this article:
http://www.crmbuyer.com/perl/story/13485.html
I hope this helps. If anything's unclear, please don't hesitate to
request clarification before rating this answer.
Thanks,
--seizer-ga
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