Running a small business can be a legal mine field, and without appropriate knowledge and understanding of the relevant risks involved, you can quickly find yourself in serious legal difficulties. Running a small business without consideration for the law is dangerous, particularly when considering the potential financial and even criminal risks you may be running. That’s why it’s a good idea to have an idea of the relevant legal provisions that may apply to particular circumstances in order to understand where you might be personally liable, and how you can avoid incurring such liability when running a small business.
The first thing to bear in mind is that running a small business has its own legal formalities relating to the particular business form you choose. For example, running your business as a sole trader will require very little in the way of natural legal formalities, other than that you file appropriate tax returns annually and that you keep appropriate records of your financial transactions on a daily basis. That burden is far more strict if you choose to operate as a limited company, and if you do choose this option it may be worth investing in a book on basic company law in order to keep you in check. Don’t take the risk and try to muddle through – it’s better to know what’s expected of you and what the penalties are by getting some form of expert opinion.
Secondly, there may be liability faced if you cause injury, either financially or physically to another party in the course of running your small business. A good way around this may be to include an exemption clause, or disclaimer, although it’s important to understand these aren’t watertight. What they can do is limit your liability in damage to physical property where it is reasonable to do so, and in no way can they limit any liability you may have for anything deemed unreasonable or anything relating to a physical injury or death. It is advisable therefore to opt for insurance coverage to protect against eventualities of this nature.
It’s a criminal offence as a small business director to trade when you are aware that your business is insolvent. This is a general proposition, and there are obviously intricacies involved, although as a general rule this must be protected against and you could receive a criminal record if you breach these laws. Similarly it’s a criminal offence not to take records of your finances and to hold on to those records for three years, and you’re open to inspection of those records by the relevant authorities. This might also be compounded by legal requirements under the VAT regime, where you will be required to keep more rigorous accounts and are with certainty subjected to periodical inspections of your premises.
There are a number of key legal provisions you should be aware of as a small business owner, and they are far too numerous to list here. Rather than spending fortunes on legal advice, a better option is to purchase a beginners’ guide to company law, to give you an insight into the practical requirements of running your business on a day to day basis, then topping up that resource with legal advice as and when required.
The owner of a copyright has the exclusive right:
to copy the work
to modify the work
to distribute the work
to perform the work publicly
to display the work publicly
Copyright is important when you obtain content for your site, and in the protection of your content. Copyrightable works are usually on the form of text, image, music, etc. Facts, titles, recipes, form designs, alphabetical lists and other items do not have the required "originality" to merit copyright protection.
One of the misconceptions about copyright protection is that you have to register your work to gain legal protection. If you do protect your original works, you are more likely to win attorneys' fees and, sometimes, higher damages.
The term "Public Domain" does not mean that everything in public or on the Internet is free from copyright protection. It refers to items that either do not qualify for copyright protection, or for which the protection has expired. The default you should assume for other people's works is that they are copyrighted and may not be copied unless you know otherwise.
The correct form for a notice on your web site is:
"Copyright [dates] by [author/owner]"
You can use C in a circle ? instead of "Copyright" but "(C)" has never been given legal force. The phrase "All Rights Reserved" used to be required in some nations but is now not legally needed most places.
Even if you don't charge anyone for a product that contains copyrighted materials, you are still violating the law. An example of such an unlawful act would be when Napster enabled widescale download of copyrighted music.
One exception would be fair use. Copyright law does not block your freedom to express your own works. For example, you may be reviewing an article from a news paper's web site that requires you to reproduce some of the work on your site is not the same as simply copying the work to your site so you don't have to create your own work. Of course, that does not mean that you can start posting articles from other web sites and pretend you are reviewing them, but you are simply stealing content to cut corners.
One of the key to the fair use doctrine is that you can not diminish the value of the original work. Copying just 300 words from Gerald Ford's 200,000 word memoir for a magazine article was ruled as not fair use, in spite of it being very newsworthy, because it was the most important 300 words - why he pardoned Nixon.
Both Naz Daud & George Meszaros are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Naz Daud has sinced written about articles on various topics from Real Estate, Ezines And Newsletters and Business Promotion. About the Author:CityLocal is an online , allowing you to Be Your Own Boss. Work From Home In Your Own Time. Naz Daud's top article generates over 60500 views. to your Favourites.