If I were to make an online business what should I not do that could get me sued over some IP bullcrap.
If you were to make a brick and mortar business, what should you not do that could get you sued over some IP bullcrap?
Talk to a lawyer.
The response that the same applies to a brick and mortar business is not quite accurate as the likelyhood of violating copyrights and patents without even noticing it seems to me to much greater. LRC has had several issues with linking to articles and then being threatened with law suites for just linking. And then there are crazy patents: Double Click, Round Edges on Screens, Amazon Clicking Process, etc. where these patent holders, I do not use the word own as I do not believe that IP is real property, can at any time decide to bring a suite against you.
But I would not let these threats stop me as the estimate that every working person commits at least 3 felonies per day. If you take 3 pills out of your 90 day supply and put them in a new container you are guild of a felony. If you help your fellow empolyee who got hit in the eye by a large bug and now has an infection then you are practicing medicine without a license. ...
Bogart:The response that the same applies to a brick and mortar business is not quite accurate
Oh really? I guess I was just under the impression that violating IP statutes is what could get one "sued over some IP bullcrap." Silly me. Please educate us all on how I'm wrong about that.
If you avoid borrowing people's websites without acknowledgement and you don't take their logos/images/etc and pass it off as your own you should be fine. Depends on the specific details of your online business. It's best to contact the government agencies involved with IP enforcement in the US, and if they're not helpful, book a consultation with a lawyer and set out your business idea. Or email Stephan Kinsella, he's an IP lawyer ( I don't understand how that works, since he's against IP laws) and a libertarian.
I started learning java last summer. I've been working on my own commercial political-economic game in java+lwjgl (opengl wrapper). Nearly everything is somehow more or less derived from existing works. What it comes down to it seems is how much attention it attracts and how much stupidity lawyers can think up to spew in court to make it seem like their own derivations are somehow distinct from yours. If the software industry at large can repeatedly reskin everything that has ever made a dime of profit, I don't think you have much to worry about. Just don't use exact copies.
Btw, I've noticed since YouTube switched to fully optional video monetization that many copyrighted materials are being verbatim posted and monetized. Thus, it has essentially become a file sharing network. It may be that Google has an intimidation factor that will insulate them from being attacked like other sharing networks.