[jrockway]

Although you still get copyright protection without it, a comment at the top of every source file with your name and the license makes it very easy for people to figure out who owns what. You didn't have any license, you didn't have any authorship or copyright headers in your source code, and then you asked the company that "stole" your code to take a look and share the code with others.

The problem is that you're communicating in a very vague manner: you should be explicit about all of your expectations and intentions so others interacting with you don't have to guess what you're thinking.

Imagine how this interaction would have gone if your source file started with:

    # Copyright (c) 2012 My Consulting Firm
    
    # This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
    # it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
    # the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
    # (at your option) any later version.

    # This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
    # but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
    # MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
    # GNU General Public License for more details.

    # You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
    # along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

And you emailed them saying:

"Hello. I've created a gem that's licensed under the GPLv3 for interacting with your service. Please feel free to link to it or redistribute it on your website under the same terms."

My guess is: this problem would have never occurred.