Ask HN: Who should own the software copyright in early stage startups?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3458063I'm in the process of co-founding a web service startup (my first one) with a non-technical business co-founder and we're in the process of negotiating seed funding.
My family and family friends are encouraging me to attempt to retain copyright of the code that I've written for the company so far, but this seems dubious at best -- I would never invest seed money into a web startup if the code wasn't owned by the startup in which I was investing, but maybe others would?.
I know it's standard practice for employment agreements to have clauses that say the company owns all of the work product and IP, but what about founders?
So, is there a standard practice for this sort of thing?
Opinions are great, but I would really love to hear from people with anecdotal experience.
Thanks!