Ask HN: Legal/IP implications of freely offered coding?

6 points by dpnewman 12 years ago | 4 comments

I am a coder & co-founder who has built an alpha web product over a year plus. The project is not yet incorporated but will be in coming months.

Another coder who loves the project is offering to help out part time without compensation in a "just to get to know each other" way. There is an understanding and verbal agreement this would be a free contribution with no offer of future work, and any/all IP would all be 100% attributed to the project. (down the road if it makes sense to all involved, he'd like to be in position to be part of things)

I want to take him up on the offer, but am concerned that if we do not have a contract, from what I understand, he's automatically assigned IP ownership as soon as he writes any code – and that would be too risky/messy right now for the project regardless of verbal agreement.

What options do I have to take advantage of his gracious offer to help? Recommendations?

centdev 12 years ago |

I'm not a lawyer but I've seen agreements for something similar in which an agreement was drawn up for the sum of $1 in exchange for freelancer service. In these cases there was a monetary exchange for services and to not confuse it for anything else.

dpnewman 12 years ago | |

thanks - this is useful. i have heard of something similar as well wherein even a small $ exchange is important to concretize the agreement.

eximius 12 years ago |

Get it in writing. E-mail, fax w/ signature, gpg signature, etc. Some kind of verifiable writing should be sufficient.

dpnewman 12 years ago | |

k ... good to hear.