Starting new company to try and protect us...

[surender]

Brief Background
I run a website that promotes a specific genre of music born in London around 2000/2001. My website's growth has been quite steady over the years and we are ready to take it to the next level.

A lot of people are becoming interested in this style of music, so much so a website has approached us who currently do what we do for another style of music. Their main reason for getting involved with us is, our music is growing rapidly and a lot of their audience is starting to take an interest. They could set up a site of their own but they don't have the links and the reputation we have.

I've looked around found some threads but nothing quite answers my questions in full.

Our Company
Basically, this website is a news site that also features audio segments of the latest tracks within our culture. The company is made of up two people, my elder brother and I.

1. Copyright - we have a logo, a brand name and ideas to start a few more projects. If we register our company name with HMRC - does this automatically protect us? How do we register something as a trademark of our company?

2. VAT - This one is a bit tricky, we are going to be letting this third party we are working with sell music through our website and we are going to take a cut, even though the VAT is charged to the end user who is purchasing the product, do we still need to pay VAT even though we are taking a 14% slice of the profits (after tax, delivery, handling, license fees etc)?

Ideally we would like to set up a business bank account that we can get our money paid straight into which leads me onto...

3. Business bank accounts - what is the benefits here? I understand the partners get company cards and I am also assuming you get access to bigger loans and finanaces (which we dont actually need).

This also makes it easier to claim money back on expenses too right? Proof of purchase etc, being able to provide statements.

4. Copyright infringement - Because we post audio of other peoples music online to promote them (small clips, 45 seconds long with our watermark on them to stop them being looped and re-used). Should we make a contract and get it signed between the artists and ourselves? Just outlining that we post the audio on the website with our watermark it is in order to promote them and that they agree with a signature?

I'll try and think of a few more questions.

I thank you in advance for your time.

[blueweb]

You need a license from PRS for the music, I believe. This should give you the information:

http://www.prsformusic.com/playingbr...ages/LOEL.aspx

of course this assumes I have understood you correctly. Is this music stuff you made yourselves or from other artists signed to record labels?