PHP or Java?

Folks, I am starting a new project and I would like to do it in PHP. However, I am concerened, that since PHP source code is "readable", the people that we sell our product to might re-sell it, remove licensing code, etc. etc. I've been using java until now but I think PHP fits this project better. I don't need the complications involved in java. Any help is greatly appreciated. I read about some "bytecode compiler" so I am posting to this list. Thanks. Nikhil