I'm working on a PC game thats coming along nicely, and someone will be working on an official website for it soon, but I dont have an official copyright. First of all, the game isnt even half done yet, but theres enough done to start telling people about it, so would I need a finished product to be able to copyright it? and if I don't copyright it, what do I need to watch out for? Would someone else be able to copyright something I've been working on by showing a demo or other exe, or would they need the source code? Plus, if i were to copyright it, would i need a company name to copyright it under? Later on down the road I know I will probably need a company name when I want to start making money off it, but i wasnt planning on worrying about this till later. Any advice you could give would be great :D

Copyright is implicit. You do not need to do anything to claim copyright on any work you do, providing you don't infringe the copyright of others. You do not need a company to claim copyright. No one else can claim the copyright on work you do unless you agree to hand the copyright to them. Employment contracts would usually have a clause in them to give the copyright (or IP, for that matter) to the company for any work you do whilst employed by them.
Your biggest problem is enforcing your copyright. You would have to prove in a court of law that you owned the copyright and that anyone infringing it took it from you without your consent. This would almost certainly cost a fair bit in legal fees.
The above isn't really a problem for unfinished work, there's not much anyone can do with unfinished work as it's not sellable. Once you've finished the game, only hand over the completed product once you've signed a contract (or they've paid you), until then, just show demo versions.

Skizz

Once it gets public (ie. the game available for download) you don't need to take any special steps to ensure yuor copyright. On the other hand, before making it public, if you want to have legal rights over it you should register it to various state agencies, depending on your country. In theory you don't have to do that, but in practice if someone steals your game before making it public it's very hard to prove YOU made the game.

Quote: Original post by Raduprv
Once it gets public (ie. the game available for download) you don't need to take any special steps to ensure yuor copyright. On the other hand, before making it public, if you want to have legal rights over it you should register it to various state agencies, depending on your country. In theory you don't have to do that, but in practice if someone steals your game before making it public it's very hard to prove YOU made the game.

how would someone be able to steal it? would they be able to go copyright something i made for themselves? if so what would they need to do it? Couldnt I prove that I wrote the program since I have the source code and they dont?

I mean, if they steal the whole thing, source code included. Maybe a trojan in your computer, or something like that.
If you don't have your material registered (to the state agencies) then you'd have a hard tiem providing it's your program.

ah, and to do that, what would i need? do i only need to tell them my name, the name of my game, and send them some money?

It depends on where you live.
In the US you have to send them some of the code too (I think it's the first and last 50 lines of code?) But anyway, do a google search for copyright law and registration, there are some sites providing good info on that, and one of the first hits should be the official .gov site.