

Ask HN: Can your website be different than your LLC name? - TTDaVeTT

I'm looking into setting up an LLC for my website.  How do you go about including your website under an LLC that has a different name?  For example, if my website is www.newsite.com and my LLC is CoolCorp?  I saw something about using a DBA for this.  How does that fit in?
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dalke
Why in the world would this be a concern? Just pulling an example from semi-
random searches, "VJM Metal Craftsman LLC" has their web site at
<http://www.historicbridgerestoration.com/> . I know an LLC where $NAME.com
was already taken, so they had to come up with something else.

The LLC owns the domain, but one question is if you push the domain name more
or less than the company name. After all, you don't go to Reckitt Benckiser’s
web site to find out more about Calgon, Woolite, Clearasil, or Lysol.

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drawkbox
You can simply make the website a 'product' and if you want trademark the
name. If it is for the LLC legally the url and product are property of the
LLC. Lots of companies have many products under one company. You can trademark
it if you feel it needs extra protection. If it takes off you can make it it's
own LLC or corp.

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dctoedt
1\. If your LLC will be doing business (that is, holding itself out to the
public) under a different name than its official name, you should probably
file an assumed-name certificate in the appropriate office (which varies by
state).

2\. If you put a copyright notice on your Web pages (a mouseprint copyright
notice is normally a good idea for evidentiary purposes, although technically
not required under U.S. law), then the copyright notice should use the
official name of the LLC, not the site URL.

Usual disclaimers: I'm a lawyer, but not YOUR lawyer, so this isn't legal
advice, don't rely on it as such, don't disclose anything confidential in the
comments (lest you waive any privilege that might apply), you and I aren't
establishing an attorney-client relationship via this thread, etc., etc.

~~~
TTDaVeTT
Ok, thanks a lot. In my example(www.newsite.com and my LLC is CoolCorp), what
would be the correct wording? Something like: "NewSite © 2010 is an affiliate
of CoolCorp LLC."?

~~~
dctoedt
The usual statutory copyright notice is "Copyright © [year of first
publication] [Owner's name]"

In your hypothetical example -- assuming CoolCorp LLC was indeed the copyright
owner -- a statutory copyright notice would be "Copyright © 2010 CoolCorp
LLC"; there'd be no need to include the URL or name of the site.

I _have_ seen notices that say something like, "NewSite Copyright © 2010
CoolCorp LLC"; I'm not aware that adding the NewSite name like that would
cause any problems.

Same disclaimers apply - I'm not your lawyer, etc.

