Legal Issues

It might seem simple. The web is free and easy after all. Download some stuff, link around to things, grab some other stuff out of newsgroups, post it all to your web site. Pretty simple and didn't cost you anything.

Well, you may be in violation of a number of laws, but who cares? It's the web, right? And the web is a big free-for-all, right?

Uh, no. The law applies on the web just like it applies everywhere else. Just because it's easy doesn't make it legal, and it certainly doesn't make it right.

So what do you do? Well, don't use copyrighted material without permission. Don't steal ... I know it's tempting to just download a program, but people worked long and hard on these things and their livelihood depends upon receiving compensation. This applies to shareware as well as commercial programs.

Even something as commonplace and simple as linking to other sites much be thought out. And then there is the interesting "crime" of bandwidth stealing ... don't do it.

Here are some additional references.