How does one go about copyrighting code? Also if an owner has a website with custom code and he sells it to someone and then sells it later to another person and they launch with a new design. Can the first claim its copyrighted? How do they prove it?
Copyright is automatic. Do a search here and you will see tons of posts with that question. Creative work is automatically copyrighted from the moment of creation. It all depends on what the original owner sells. If he is selling the right to use something, then yes, he can still claim copyright ownership. If you sell the rights as well, then no, you may not claim ownership until you purchase the rights back.
One of the biggest mistakes people make when purchasing things like websites is forgetting to make sure who owns what copyrights.. Obviously if you buy a forum website you don't get the copyright to the software if its vBulletin or phpBB etc, but it might if the software was custom written specifically for them.. When I have paid to have software developed I always made sure that I owned sole rights to the finished product.. And when I have written software to sell I set a price structure based on what the buyer actually wanted from rights to use to full resale rights.. It all comes down to - what does your contract say?