Photo courtesy of opensource.com, licenced under a Creative Commons attribution license.
So you’re an developer. You take elegant code and turn it in to amazing apps and software. Everything from games, to productivity tools to help users cut down on the amount of time they spend gaming. Whether making open source contributions or coding proprietary software, legal questions come up, and that's where New Media Rights can help.
You’re collaborative, often working informally with a team of coders and artists to produce your product. Sometimes you sign written contracts as part of business, but often you just focus on getting your app or software out the door. Unfortunately occasionally disputes arise. Who owns the code? The client, or you? Can someone on your team leave, take the code, and use it to create their own app that you don't profit from or get credit for?
Maybe you're making open-source contributions through an employer, or your company wants to incorporate open source software into its product, and you have legal questions.
Your users are great. You may want to be able to gather data from users, but you want to do it in a way that avoids lawsuits and looking like you're the NSA. You wonder what kind of notice you need to provide your users, and how to draft a privacy policy and terms of use that lets users clearly know the conditions of their use of your app/software. You wonder if you should have a specially tailored privacy policy and terms of service instead of copying and pasting Facebook’s. Hint: You should.
And you love producing content. But it’s sometimes its easier to just grab images and music from online. That is, until your app/software gets taken down from the app store or the internet for a copyright violation. Or maybe it was a trademark violation, after all how were you supposed to know making your own version of “Family Feud” and calling it that violated trademark law. Regardless, you just spent a lot of time working that will never see the light of day. You've also risked your developer account. Having a knowledgeable attorney look at your idea before you launch, or better yet, before you create it, can save you a lot of time and headache.
That’s why New Media Rights provides free, reduced fee and competitive fee legal services. If you’re an developer we can help with the following issues.
- Pre-Release Review of App or Software for copyright and trademark issues.
- Writing Terms of Use and Privacy Policies.
- Counseling on a broad array of software licensing issues
- Open Source software related legal questions
- Counseling on user privacy, data aggregation, and trademark issues.
- Review and writing of contracts.
- Help with DMCA takedowns of an app from an app distribution platform.
- Help with cease and desist letters for copyright and trademark infringement.
Now that you know how New Media Rights can help you, please feel free to fill in our contact form here.
