How to protect computer science project from being stolen by &quot;employees&quot; as an individual
<p>I am developing an online platform for renting computer hardware and I've reached the point where I need to create the website. I do not have the required expertise to do that, so I thought I would hire someone to do it. I am currently an individual working at this in my spare time, but I would like to create a business wrapped around this platform at some point.</p>

<p>So far I've been working alone because I was afraid of so called "employees" stealing parts of the project and claiming it as their own. I cannot proceed like this any longer, since the project has grown to a size which I can't handle alone anymore.</p>

<p>I would like to hire someone to help me develop it. What steps should I follow to keep my project safe? Can I somehow make sure that what the said partner is working on will only be used in this specific project, and if given access to existing parts of the project, he/she would not reuse them in their own projects?</p>

<p>Note: It is my first time here and I have no knowledge regarding copyrights at all, please excuse any obvious questions.</p>

<p>Your main protection will be copyright; if anyone copies part of your site then you can sue them.</p>

<p>If you hire someone as an employee then anything they write in the course of their employment will be a "work for hire" and hence the copyright will be owned by you or your company. It wouldn't hurt to require all code files to carry a copyright header saying this, but it isn't necessary.</p>

<p>If you hire a contractor then you should make sure that the contract says that all rights in the work produced will be owned by you.</p>

<p>You should also get both employees and contractors to agree to a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) which will cover any trade secrets, including customer data that your coders may come into contact with.</p>

copyright non-disclosure