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Learning from my past mistakes, I'm reading up on filing a copyright for the software I'm about to publish. As I'm doing this, a question keeps popping in my head, so I thought I'd ask it here, being as I remember from the old boards there are a few people here with quite a head for the law.
I posted in the announcements forum about some software I'm about to publish, and my main driving force for finishing it. Now I'm wondering if I even have any legal recourse for what happened. and how this will effect my filing.
So let's say, hypothetically, that I was once a volunteer for a game, but left after disagreements. Let's also say that someone high up in that game was my roommate. As a way to learn C#/.Net, I began creating a piece of software that would enable developers to easily create multiuser environments. Now let's say that game approached me, after using an eval copy of the software under an eval license, about licensing the software when it was finished to create a p2p game with, but negotiations ultimatly failed. At this point, development sorta stopped, and while the software was usuable, I didn't consider it complete, so I never filed a copyright. Let's say that later I legally came across proof that the source code for their game included a significant portion of the source code for my software, which I had never given to anyone.
Now, let's say almost everything has been rewritten, or at least modified and made more powerfull, and I am about to release the software for non-commercial use to the public. I intend to file a copyright, which will have to include the new source code.
Given the above, would I have any legal recourse? And more importantly, should I also file the version 1.0 source code so that my copyright cannot be disputed?
I appreciate any advice here, as the mess I've gotten myself into is way above my legal understanding.
Thanks,
Kris
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