Q: My company is into trading of plastic and software products. I have tied up with an individual in London who owns copyright on a security software. I would like to be his distributor for African and Asian regions, as I have resellers in those regions who have orders for the same.
My question to you is can I produce the software in CD form on behalf of the copyright holder in India if he gives me the permission to do so as he holds the key generation software to unlock the same software?
A: Generally, if the holder of the intellectual property rights gives you permissions, you can do whatever you agreed to. But that agreement should be in writing. To cover yourself, you’ll want to clarify some additional issues, as well (of course, in writing):
- That your London contact is the rightful copyright owner of the software (you mentioned that your London contact and an Indian contact have the rights–either they have the rights jointly, or only one of them can own it. You cannot assert legitimate rights to make CDs of the software if you know that one person ripped it off from the rightful owner.
- Whether your London contact has other intellectual property rights vis-à-vis the software (such as patents)
- Whether other distributors have been authorized for your territory
- The period of time that you’ll be entitled to distribute the software
- That you in fact have permission to produce the software in CD form (or any other authorized forms)
Distribution agreements can get complicated–and there may be international trade regulations or tariffs involved in distributing this software. Make sure to speak to an attorney who knows this area well.
This entry was posted on Friday, October 9th, 2009 at 10:39 am and is filed under Basic Training, Intellectual Property. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.Leave a Reply
