Hi, I'm currently developing an app (for android phones and PC) for myself and was thinking about potentially distributing and/or selling it, however there are some potential copywrite issues due to the nature of the application and was hoping to get some general advice on those issues so I can better decide if I should distribute the app or just keep it to myself. Naturally I'd seek proper legal advice before actually releasing it but such advice can be costly so I figured I'd check here first to see if there's anything obviously problematic about my app that would prevent me from legally selling it.
Generalized description of the app:
What my app does is download freely available information and pictures from a freely accessible accessible website then allows better searching and display of the information and more importantly allows access to the information while offline. I should probably mention that it doesn't actually display the whole web pages just the relevant information from them, but it does display the URL of the web page that the information came from. Alot of the pictures will probably be copywrited (actually it could just be what is depicted in the pictures) or contain trademarked symbols however the app isn't doing anything with them that that an internet browser doesn't, it just downloads and displays them.
The app would be distributed without any of the copywrited pictures, information (not sure that the information is actually copywrited though) or trademarked symbols, and the user would then use the app to download those things from the website. So I wouldn't actually be selling or distributing anything that was copywrited to anyone else.
My Questions:
1. Does any of that sound like it is infringing on copywrite?
2. Will I need to contact the copywrite holder for permission to release the app?
3. Do I need to add copywrite information to my app for the copywrited stuff that it'll display (like at the bottom of this site it has "SMF © 2006-2007, Simple Machines LLC").
4. If there are copywrite issues would they be different if the app was released for free instead of selling it?
5. What legal things would do I need to do to before I release the app? Do I need to get the app copywrited, register the name or company or do anything else like that? I've never released a product before so I'm sure there's probably all sorts of things that I need to do that I don't know about.
6. If there are legal issues are they still a problem if I just keep the app for my own personal use? What about giving the app to just a few friends for free without ever actually releasing it publicly?
Author
Topic: Questions about potential legal issues with an app (Read 443 times)
