Forum Moderators: not2easy
With regard to ensuring that the content becomes my property what kind of conditions should I be stating when I make an offer for the site?
I just want to make sure the same articles don't pop up on a new site that's he's created a week later after I buy the old site!
Thanks
Will I eventually have to get something in writing from him? I just checked out some details at copyright.gov and under the section 'Transfer of Copyright' it states
Any or all of the copyright owner’s exclusive rights or any subdivision of those rights may be transferred, but the transfer of exclusive rights is not valid unless that transfer is in writing and signed by the owner of the rights conveyed or such owner’s duly authorized agent.
Is this normal practice for website content too?
Having said that make it "all content becomes my copyright", ownership and copyright are distinct claims, you can own a painting but the copyright remains with the artist...
Sorry for the delay in replying, I hit the sack after my last post.
Thanks again.
It would also be best to specifically list the articles, just to be sure that you are not only getting a copyright on the collection.
Thanks for that Big Dave.
I would guess if you paid an attorney in this area for one hour of his time and simply asked him/her questions about how you should phrasing the deal and talking to the other party and what types of things you should be asking for you would do very well.
I did this with a web based business I was thinking of buying into several years back. I went to my attorney and paid him for an hour of time to basically tell me what I should be asking for in the early part of the deal discussion. For example, he told me to ask for a corporation structure of a closed board of only 4 members, me and my partner and the two I was thinking of joining. He said this way 3 people would have to be in agreement on something before anything could happen, which would be a much better way of protecting our interest. I would never even have thought to ask for something like this in the early discussion. Once I had all of his advice then included this in my conversation and you wouldn't believe how fast the deal fell apart once I started asking for the right stuff.
I could have done it the hard way and waited [and paid] to get an entire deal drafted and had it fall apart, which would have been much more expensive.
