Legal stuff
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Hey! some one can provide me some help about legal issues of selling software online. The case is: I developed some "Application X" and want to try to sell it online, what should I keep in mind?, besides the license of the IDE, the OS and libraries and stuff. Please some help here...
printf("Error: No keyboard found!"); printf("Press any key to continue");
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Hey! some one can provide me some help about legal issues of selling software online. The case is: I developed some "Application X" and want to try to sell it online, what should I keep in mind?, besides the license of the IDE, the OS and libraries and stuff. Please some help here...
printf("Error: No keyboard found!"); printf("Press any key to continue");
These links[^] might help.
-------------- TTFN - Kent
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Hey! some one can provide me some help about legal issues of selling software online. The case is: I developed some "Application X" and want to try to sell it online, what should I keep in mind?, besides the license of the IDE, the OS and libraries and stuff. Please some help here...
printf("Error: No keyboard found!"); printf("Press any key to continue");
[I need more coffee to wake up today! Somehow I missed the "legal" bit in the OP and wrote a broadranging reply instead]. Welcome to the ISV world. :) First of all, head over to The Business of Software[^] and start reading. All of the issues you're likely to encounter have been raised there at one time or another. Secondly, get yourself a copy of Bob Walsh's Micro-ISV: From Vision to Reality[^] and Eric Sink's The Business of Software[^]. The former is effectively a cookbook with lots of tips on getting your product out there, and the latter contains essays on subjects from how to market a product to how to organise a stand for a trade show. I recommend both highly. Thirdly, start reading ISV blogs. Andy Brice's Successful Software[^] is a must, but there are plenty of others. 47 Hats[^] is a good resource for finding them. Fourthly, get yourself to at least one ISV conference (e.g. The Business of Software[^], The European Software Conference[^] or ISDEF[^]). You'll learn a huge amount from mixing with other ISVs, believe me - and most small ISV conferences are very inexpensive by comparison with their "mainstream" cousins. Finally - and most importantly - as a developer you have to realise that there is much more to selling a product than developing it. Effectively, your three most critical activities are Development, Market
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Hey! some one can provide me some help about legal issues of selling software online. The case is: I developed some "Application X" and want to try to sell it online, what should I keep in mind?, besides the license of the IDE, the OS and libraries and stuff. Please some help here...
printf("Error: No keyboard found!"); printf("Press any key to continue");
I'm not sure what you mean by legal issues, out of all the business related issues of selling software online legal is about 1% of it but here are things that you should take care of to avoid legal problems: Accidental trademark infringement - This is the number one legal issue you will likely face, in fact it's almost a certainty unless you do your homework on your chosen product name. You could end up spending a *hell* of a lot of money to fix this problem if you don't catch it early on and trust me if you don't catch it the offended party definitely will. Remember that selling online is selling globally so the research you do here will be time consuming and worth every second you spend on it. Essentially if you can register your chosen product name as a .com domain name you've cleared at least half of the research you need to do because anyone who is anyone with a serious business selling software will have already registered a trademarked name as a .com domain. Be sure to check for variant but phonetically similar spelling for similar products, examine the US patent and trademark office online site (doesn't matter if you are in the U.S. or not, that's where the lawsuits will come from most likely since online by nature is selling into the U.S.). Proper license agreement created by a real lawyer who specializes in it for your jurisdiction. Export restrictions - your software may (almost certainly does) contain 3rd party or lower level software libraries with export restrictions, make sure your payment processing company can be set to filter out purchases from restricted countries. Potential patent infringement (unlikely but it *is* a possibility depending on the type of software and industry). And of course all the little business issues that might crop up and land you in legal trouble like income tax, corporate tax etc etc.
"It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it." -Sam Levenson