1. Do you have to be a certain age if you want to register a company? 2. Can you own a company without actually registering it? 3. How do you add a copyright to your software?

1. Yes but what age that is will depend on the law in your country (or the country where you register the company if different). You will need to check with a lawyer or accountant.

2. I think you mean can you work LIKE a company even if you do not actually create a legally registered company. Again the answer is that this depends on the law in your country. In many countries you can work as an individual (often refered to as a contractor/self employed) using a trading name. Being a company provides certain legal protections that you would not have as a freelance person. tax laws are also different for individuals than they are for companies - you need to talk to an accountant to find out how these are different in your country.

3. Simply display the text "copyright [YEAR] [YOUR NAME]. All rights reserved." at some point in the game (usually on a title/loading screen). Some countries require you to register your copyright for it to be official. The UK does not require this and neither does the USA, but in the USA if you do register you get extra protection compared to someone who does not. As above you need to talk to a lawyer to find out the law in your country.

Dan Marchant
Obscure Productions
Game Development & Design consultant

[edited by - obscure on August 18, 2003 10:43:26 AM]

If you are worried about copyright, one simple way to protect yourself is to put the copyright information on your file / screen shot etc, print it out (or stick it on a disk) and post it to yourself (assuming wherever you are has postal marks with a date on)

Now as long as you never open the envelope you have a dated record of when you copyrighted something. If you ever need to open it, such as in a dispute, get a reputable third party to open it and signthe date they opened it, and witness the contents.

In answer to your other questions, you can be an owner / director of a company at different ages, but don''t forget (certainly in the uk) if you don''t regsiter your company name, you do not really exist and someone else can still register your name and trade off any reputation you may have. But if you do register, then there is paperwork at least twice a year, and administration costs (end of year accounts, registration fees etc).

Bp

quote:

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Original post by Bagpuss
If you are worried about copyright, one simple way to protect yourself is to put the copyright information on your file / screen shot etc, print it out (or stick it on a disk) and post it to yourself (assuming wherever you are has postal marks with a date on)

Now as long as you never open the envelope you have a dated record of when you copyrighted something. If you ever need to open it, such as in a dispute, get a reputable third party to open it and signthe date they opened it, and witness the contents.

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AFAIK this method doesn''t work anymore as most postal services refuse to testify in court for the validity of the stamp / envelope. And since court or lawyers are pretty much the only places where you would actually *need* such an envelope to prove that the work is yours, it makes this method obsolete.

Just simply mark it with "Copyright(c) YEAR, NAME. All rights reserved." and if you are still worried it will get ripped off, spend the few bucks to get the copyright registered.


Sander Maréchal
[Lone Wolves Game Development][RoboBlast][Articles][GD Emporium][Webdesign][E-mail]

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quote:

---

Original post by Bagpuss
If you are worried about copyright, one simple way to protect yourself is to put the copyright information on your file / screen shot etc, print it out (or stick it on a disk) and post it to yourself (assuming wherever you are has postal marks with a date on)

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Not the self addressed envelop, please lord not that again!

Don''t send something to yourself. It serves no purpose because:
a) You could have added the contents after it had been through the post.
b) You can''t guarantee that the post office will put the postmark exactly where you need it.
c) You could have made your own postmark stamp.

Much more importantly though it serves no purpose because it does not create any witnesses. If you go into court and claim "I own this game" the court will judge that to have exactly the same weight as if you were to go into court and claim "I own this game and I have an envelop I sent myself that proves it." - The only witness that you did what you say is you, and you are biased.

You can''t call the post office as a witness. They don''t keep proof of every package that they deliver and even if they did they could only give evidence regarding the package and not its contents.

You need to take the item to a credible witness such as a lawyer/solicitor and get them to make a notarised copy.

(If the above rings a bell its because it was last posted in these forums here just seven days ago).

Dan Marchant
Obscure Productions
Game Development & Design consultant

Hi,
Thanks for your help.
But I''m still confused, I mean if you are under eighteen and if you have an unregistered **company**, do you get sued or something?

No, unless your country has some really weird laws about that, which I doubt.

If you have an unregistered company you simply have no company at all. All transactions that you make as a ''company'' are your personal transactions. For the law, you are an individual, not a company. Same goes for the taxes.

You will only get sued if your unregistered company does things which it cannot do, business tax-deductions for example. That would be concidered fraud or tax-evasion since you are an individual, not a company.

Yet again, the best advice is to talk to a lawyer. In my country, the camber of commerce has regular ''open days'' for start-up companies. There are a couple of seminars about various subjects. We can also arrange a free meeting with a lawyer, a noraty or a tax-specialist. That''s how we met our current notary. He simply though that my company startup plan was great and decided to help us of for only 100 euro''s (the normal costs for our plans would have been over 400 euro''s).

Check with your local chamber of commerce to see it they have something similar, or if they have information for startup companies.

Sander Maréchal
[Lone Wolves Game Development][RoboBlast][Articles][GD Emporium][Webdesign][E-mail]

GSACP: GameDev Society Against Crap Posting
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Ok I get it.
But as you said that you will be treated as an individual, when you release products, don''t you have to pay a tax for it?

Yes of course because you are treated like an individual and individuals pay tax on the money they earn.

Dan Marchant
Obscure Productions
Game Development & Design consultant

The main difference between you and a registered company when you are selling your game:

individual:
-pay income tax on the profit you make from the game
-pay VAT on the CD''s you buy to burn the game on

company:
-pay profit tax on the profit you make from the game
-pay VAT on the CD''s you buy to burm the game on
-pay VAT that you get from the game at the end of the year
-get VAT from your CD''s refunded at the end of the year

PS: VAT = Value Added Tax. The tax that they put on products.

Sander Maréchal
[Lone Wolves Game Development][RoboBlast][Articles][GD Emporium][Webdesign][E-mail]

GSACP: GameDev Society Against Crap Posting
To join: Put these lines in your signature and don''t post crap!