Should I or my corporation copyright my content?

Which is better?

[HRoth]

I've just incorporated my business. Should my content's copyright belong to me personally (corporate officer) or to my corporation? What are the pros and cons? If the corporation holds the copyright, can it be transferred to me at a later date?

[iamlost]

If you retain copyright but grant non-exclusive rights to your site you can reuse/resell the content even after selling the website or it goes out of business. That may not be so if the site holds copyright.

If you create another company to hold your writings it can sell limited rights to yourself, as the website company, (as well as anyone else you care to) and help spread/lower your taxes (adjust to suit!).

Copyright can be transfered back and forth but why bother, why take chances? Managing copyright as a valuable asset means including it in your business plan - you have one, right? Far too many people have no idea of the value of their content and so neglect to accord it either respect or a fair asset price.

Regardless, I strongly recommend getting competent legal and accounting advice.

[angelos]

To my opinion, it depends on how you assess your content's worth. If you think it's potentially quite valuable, then you should take into account the fact that the assets can be used for covering your possible limited liabilities.

[HRoth]

"If you create another company to hold your writings it can sell limited rights to yourself, as the website company, (as well as anyone else you care to) and help spread/lower your taxes (adjust to suit!)."

Hmm. I was thinking of creating another corporation (a publishing company) for my book(s) anyway. It could control the copyright to the site's content. Yeah!