Legal Stuff Regardin Websites

Spunog UIE

Lo,
I just want to know how safe or covered you are if you regester a domain. www.whatever.com .
With places like Geocities Tripod etc etc, there seems to be a huge element of annomity. I want to know how easily you can be held accountable if you regester a domain. If its easy for them to know who you are. I'm guessin it is fairly easy seen as you usually use a credit card to pay for them, and have to renew them too.
But then again you do see a lot of warez sites that are working and quiet clearly breaking the law, how do they get away with it????
This would be a concern for me purchasing a domain that i might enfringe on someones copyright or break some other law. Its classed as publishing on the net ya/? Soooooo am i just being parnoid or what????????

wintermute

I think that you should separate the process of registering a domain and the process of actually doing something with it. As far as I know (and I may be wrong) registering a domain is a matter of satisfying the requirements of the registering body such as Network Solutions.

What you actually do with the domain is governed by the laws of the country where the actual system is located. So, the content etc. of the webserver for www.criminal-activity.com is governed by the associated laws of the country where it's physically located.

As for the anonymity factor, the owner and contact details of a domain owner are traceable through the records of the registering body they used. These records are publicly available. The physical (geographical) location of any servers hanging off that domain (WWW, FTP etc.) is traceable to the point of the local / regional ISP.

Hope this helps.

damnyanks

As long as you can prove that your using the site not to gain or cause any harm to whatver it is and that you have a actual interest in the name they cant really touch you.

beaver

First of all, copyright covers original material created by a person, such as a book or a painting. It's of no consequence when registering a domain. If you're infringing on someone's trademark with the domain you register, it's highly unlikely that you're going to get into any bother over it without being given a fair opportunity to resolve the conflict. Most domain registrars have Dispute Policies for dealing with these situations, which you must agree to before registering your domain.

Registering a domain involves giving such details as Domain Owner, Administrative Contact, etc. While you could give false details here, you're most likely going to end up paying by credit card, so total anonimity isn't likely.

As regards using a domain for a site that breaks the law... it's dependant on the Terms of Service that you entered into with your domain registrar and also the laws in the country that the server resides in.

IIRC in some places it's legal to download full program and keep them on your machine for up to 24 hours. A lot of warez sites advertise (or used to) that you should delete the programs after that time, although that naturally wasn't their intended message. Anyway, functional warez sites don't tend to last all that long.

In any case, you're probably not going to get into any immediate major trouble over whatever domain you register, nomatter the content of your site. You'll generally be given fair warning.

-Ross

Spunog UIE

Okay i obivously wasn't that clear,
it really had nothing to do with regestering the thing only that you would be more prone as to be caught or for people to be able to trace you if you enfringed on their copyright.
I'm not one of those wasters that would buy a domain addie just to hope to sell it in the future. I mean if i paid for it i'd bloody use it!!!
But cheers for the info in about gettin meself into trouble. I tend to slag a certain amount of ppl off with wbsites, usually adds good humour and allows people viewing the site to have their own input. But ahhhhh i dunno, i'll think about it. Anyway to regester n pay for a domain with out givin over person details that can be checked??????? Just cover my ass really.