IP - Can I do what I want with it?

[vwdan]

You (the individual) always has the moral right to be identified as the author of the work, unless you waived that right, which you won't have done.

However, the copyright would generally be owned by the company that you were working for when you produced the work. There's nothing to stop you selling it through that company, but if you were going to start a new company to sell it then I would just knock up a word document that formally transfers the copyright to the new entity - that way if anything happens to your existing company there can be no doubt (you might build it up to be massive and sell up to someone else, and the new owners would be able to chase for copyright theft potentially).

Unlikely to be a problem, but I would make sure that the copyright or the right to distribute, modify, sell, licence it etc etc was formally transferred to the new company.

That makes a lot of sense, thank you.

[TheFaQQer]

You (the individual) always has the moral right to be identified as the author of the work, unless you waived that right, which you won't have done.

However, the copyright would generally be owned by the company that you were working for when you produced the work. There's nothing to stop you selling it through that company, but if you were going to start a new company to sell it then I would just knock up a word document that formally transfers the copyright to the new entity - that way if anything happens to your existing company there can be no doubt (you might build it up to be massive and sell up to someone else, and the new owners would be able to chase for copyright theft potentially).

Unlikely to be a problem, but I would make sure that the copyright or the right to distribute, modify, sell, licence it etc etc was formally transferred to the new company.

[vwdan]

Probably a silly question, really - but whatever! A few years ago I wrote a piece of software and started selling it through my company. It's totally "mine" and wasn't directly related to a contract or anything like that.

Is there any problem in selling this software away from the company - i.e., spinning it off into another company or licensing it to someone else? Do I need to do some kind of transfer of IP, or can I simply say the software is personally mine?