IS THIS LEGAL????????????????????????

[curiousity]

I was wondering if it is legal to have a download link from my website. Those downloads are not mine but if the user click on it it will download the programs from the main source. It is similar to downloads.com in which by clicking on download the user will be download things from its original source. IS THIS LEGAL ???????????

One more thing....will this use bandwidth from my website?

[Technics]

It is illegal unless you tell the software author you are doing this. And it wont eat your bandwidth just the bandwidth of the persons site your downloading from.

[Zitech_Industries]

Hey! Everything is legal unless you get caught! Seriously, I think it is only an annoyance and is legal as long as the material is not "owned" by a private source. To make sure, just give credit to the person/places its linked from.

[Technics]

So i can basically rob banks until i get caught and its legal? ... Right when i start robbing banks i'm going to refer the prosecution to this link and say i was told it was legal.

[Webdude]

If you are asking if, for example, if you can recommend the Photoshop program, and have a link that downloads from Photoshops site, then that is probably ok. I doubt anyone will have a problem with you promoting their program unless it is hacked or cracked. Photshop has a limited version which can be downloaded, and really dont care where it's downloaded from.

Same pretty much goes for any kind of linking. As long as what you are linking to is not illegal itself, then it's generally accepted.

[curiousity]

Thank you webdude,

The site that I intend to have downloads to is http://www.ingava.com

It has great FREE games to download. And of cource I will only provide links such as:

http://www.club-internet.fr/perso/rvalanti/download/PLOING05_16levels.exe

on my websites.

Now what if I don't mentioned anything about the source but I also do not claim that those are my games. Is this still O.K.???

Besides webdude, is there anyone else with any other opinion reguarding this issues. I need to know before I start posting download links.

[KNK]

From what I know .. if the downloads have been noted copyright and are available on the makers website you can link it ... AS LONG as you have a link bac k to their website someone where near the link for the download. You also HAVE TO state that it's not your software and it's the makers. So you have also have to state the makers name. It's all on copyright sites that you can read this up on. Also if you do this you know for sure you will not have a problem with the makers if you do this. :D Good Luck!

[NC_TOM]

You should make sure that cross-linking is OK with the place that you are linking to. When you link to them, and a user downloads it from the link on your site, you are making the actual file host pay for bandwidth. Some people would be very pissed off to find someone doing this, while on the other hand some people would encourage it.

You're safest if you host them on your own site rather than linking to someone else's downloads. If you talk to the person who you're linking to, you're safest.

[Epgs]

ok this brings up a question, what about php scripts (under the gnu) can you have them on your website and let people download them?b

[curiousity]

O.K. I think the best way for me to handle this is e-mailing them and ask if I could link to their download games. I don't own any of those cool games but I want people that visit my site to know about it.
When I look at the link again, I found out that some of the games are stored the the website http://www.club-internet.fr/ (if you look at the link that I posted above in my previous post). So I don't even know if Ingava.com actually owns those games or not. Anyway, it is best to ask to make sure.

Anymore suggestions?

[psalzer]

I think e-mailing them is definitely the way to go. They might offer downloads and have advertising on their site as their revenue source. If so, and you're linking directly to the file..yeah..they'd probably be unhappy about it.

[Rodie]

I don't think this is so much a "legal or illegal" issue, rather, I think it's common courtousy. In most all cases, I think you should just ask the person. I'm willing to bet that most of the time they will be more than happy to let you link to their files, who knows, maybe you will even get something out of it (i.e. maybe they will link to your site)

[Michael]

Why not put a link to their main page on your site? I'm sure they would have no problem with that.

I didn't know you could edit on this board :)



[Edited by Michael on 01-17-2001 at 07:53 AM]

[LeX]

They're gonna have problems with you placing links to their main site?!?! Or was that a typo??

[Michael]

That was a typo :(

Meant to say: no problem