A Real Time Strategy (RTS) in 3 Levels
Believe it or not, creating art for video games or software is easy compared to protecting it. Each time you create, you’ve entered a whole new game in which you must keep away the copyright and trademark infringers, rescue user agreements, and conquer commercial applications. Here’s what you need to consider on your quest.
Level 1: Crowd Control
In a video game Crowd Control (CC) refers to abilities or actions that can disable or control other players. The first “player” you need to consider is development of the software. Has everyone who worked on the software signed agreements to provide all rights to your organization if the software is to be proprietary to your organization? If you are using open-source software, make sure you have looked at and understand the license agreements to ensure you are legally entitled to utilize the software and that there are no concerns about rights to the software that you may be giving up.
Level 2: The Loot
What’s your revenue model? Will it be subscription based, a time purchase, or a freemium model where the base usage is provided free, but users can purchase additional features? You need to consider what restrictions you need in your users’ agreement to protect your software from being misappropriated. Spell out who can modify and distribute the software. When creating these agreements, it’s vital to consider other commercial applications for your software.
Level 3: Don’t be a Nerf
Nerf’s are characters who have lost their effectiveness. Don’t make it easy for others to easily appropriate your creative concepts. Research all available protections, including patents, trademarks and copyrights. Are you protecting the software in terms of data privacy, cybersecurity, and other potential vulnerabilities? It’s time to buff your knowledge of regulatory requirements and industry standards that may be involved with your software product.
Bonus Round
Having all these questions thrown at you may have you feeling ava-tired and under fire. But you want these issues ironed out early in the game so that you meet potential misappropriations of your work fully armed with the protections of the law. Pew! Pew!
