Monday
Tips/AdviceLegal Tips From Gene Landy
The IT / Digital Legal Companion
Gene Landy, the author of the great book The IT/Digital Legal Companion, has some tips that could help you in the long run when it comes to startup success and legal procedures.
Most internet entrepreneurs don’t know much about the legal background necessary for successful startups to be formed. If you still haven’t read his book, you’re going to want to but it after you read these tips he gave.
These “vital legal tips for the digital entrepreneur” are great points that should be put into practice by anyone who wants to avoid growing pains once their company takes off.
- Mix open-source with proprietary licensing. This will let you cater both to people who are only in it for using, but more importantly, to companies that want to buy your code and use it to create a derivative.
- Secure startup IP. Make sure everything you created before you went online with your startup is transferred to it. This could lead to future legal disputes over who owes what.
- Police user-generated content. Most of the time, user-generated content is lame. Make sure you monitor it, as it can be copied from somewhere else, leaving open the door for legal procedures to come knocking.
- Avoid “right of first refusal” clauses. Right of first refusal means that once you try to sell your company, the person you signed that deal with, can come and take it away. Having one can put a stop to any deal you sign in the future.
- Register multiple trademarks. Make sure your product is registered everywhere you’re planning to sell it. If you do this, then you avoid having problems once your product or service gets popular and people try to create copycat versions.
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Post Tags: Employment, Law, Open source, Services, User-generated content
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