Legal pitfalls that could sink online businesses
Posted on June 23, 2008
Filed Under Legal |
A lot of the time the general impression that you just dealing with a computer/laptop when you run businesses online, can be misleading. I’m thinking of doing a post on various online businesses that either got run aground totally , or made huge losses, because the owners didn’t pay attention to detail, or take the right steps to protect themselves. As a matter of fact, as this series progresses I definitely will dedicate a couple of posts to this. In simpler terms , the online business world is governed by laws, the same laws that govern everyday business, with a little extra. So what’s all the hassle about ?
If you intend to grow any number of successful online businesses you must develop the right legal framework, primarily to protect yourself. Having to do this with a legal hurricane on its way can be really disconcerting and practically speaking, you’ll probably just be trying to save scraps at the end of the day.
As technical as protecting yourself with/from the law , there are simple steps you can take to ensure that you do not find yourself in a legal quagmire, sinking into the quicksand of a muddled online business .
Basically there are a good number of issues that you should deal with if you’re thinking of running profitable online businesses. As an example , who owns the copyright to your site, and what does that mean for all the content you’ve unwittingly put on it? Can you be held liable for all the promises you make on your site? How responsible are you for the decisions people make based on the content on your site ?
You may get away with a lot of stuff when the money is coming in trickles, but once you start making it big (and if you keep reading this blog you should ) the sharks will come. Its better to view your online businesses as what you believe they will eventually become , and guard them with a very strong sense of ownership.
This is just the opening post and we’ll be looking at some legal documents , what they mean and why your online businesses need to be protected with them.
Some of the documents we’ll be looking at include domain transfer agreement, copyright assignment agreement, pre-contract agreement, content license for text, non-disclosure agreement (NDA), photo, or video material, web site terms & conditions of use, web site development contract, web site development, Internet advertising contract, internet use policy, maintenance agreement, graphic design contract, domain name/site transfer contract, search engine optimization contract, advertising agreement, terms of use, advertising and marketing services agreement, affiliate agreement, contract dissolution agreement, and a few others.
I’m not an expert in Legal matters - and thats good, because I’ll be sharing information from my personal research in language that’s as simple as possible, so everyone can follow
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