business-registration, open-sourceI am not interested at this time in starting a business. My health is too poor. What I am doing is writing open source software to keep my skills up and would like to release it under a fictitious name.
Do I need to do anything so the software copyright is assigned to that name? At some point I hope to roll the software into a business.
I am in the US, more specifically Washington state.
Thanks
The answer to your question is that you can operate your business as a "dba", meaning "doing business as". So, for example, Sam Smith could be "doing business as" Sam's Software. This is also called a "sole proprietorship", and it requires no licensing other than a sales tax permit, if Washington requires one.
As for copyrights, you can always put the copyright in the name of your fictitious "dba", whatever that is. Obtaining a copyright is pretty simple and straightforward. Go to www.copyright.gov
to study more on it, but it's simple.
Hope this helps.
Good luck!
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