copyright code?

[gBay]

hi all,
ive written some long javascript code. ive been on a competitors website and seen theyve basically copied and pasted my code. i didnt put a copyright notice at the top of my code. is there anything i can do about this? would copyrighting my code stop this from happening? what recourse can i take?
thanks

[Nick]

How are you sure they've copied your code? Is it some unique script that you wrote and matches up perfectly with what they now have?

[gBay]

hi,
yes, its some code that ive used to control my google map. so even though i obviously dont have sole rights to the google api, it is code that ive written so the code interacts with various divs on the page. theyve got exactly the same code, line by line, even some comments i put in for my own reference.

[Nick]

Have you tried contacting them in regards to this issue? If they are uncooperative or don't respond you could try contact their hosting provider.

[gBay]

I havnt tried contacting them yet. I want to know where i stand. Ill obviosuly be friendly and diplomatic with them, but I need to say something like "by law any code i write belongs to the company i work for and cannot be used without permission by anyone else". But can i say that if i havnt got a copyright statement in my code to begin with?
thanks

[tke71709]

It's your code and automatically copyrighted with/without an implicit copyright statement.

You can't sue for damages without copyrighting it but you can still stop others from using it.

[gBay]

thanks tke71709. Ive done a search for this subject, but cant find anything relevant. Im sure what you say is correct though.