Patent Question for a Social Network Site?

[bcnu]

Patents are for new and non-obvious inventions. Do you have any of those?

Copyright of your software will be automatic, once it's written down somewhere. The bigger issue is frequently the jointly owned works as default from jointly supplied creative works of authorship. In theory, anyone who contributes anything to the code owns the entire copyright (as a joint owner) unless there is clear documentation (contracts) to the contrary.

For instance, you could form an LLC and hand out "member shares" under a shareholder agreement and then have all members, employees and independent contractors sign short and clear transfer of all rights in the copyright to the LLC in exchange for the LLC's agreement to package, market and distribute it and give the contributors AGREED royalties in proportion to their contributions...

Also strongly consider non-disclosure agreements with anyone in the group or outsiders who have access to the "plans" or other trade secrets.