Legal question?

Depends on where you are in the world. Can't speak for the US, but here in Aus you'd be screwed (if they could afford or be bothered taking you to court... Do note that here in Aus, copyright is automatically generated, rather than required to be registered, as in the US).

Allsoo.. If you're in the US (according to my girlfriend, currently studying IP law at uni), you'll be vulnerable to the above AUSTRALIAN IP laws, due to a free trade agreement. That is, if you stole Australian content, and you live in the US, an Australian could sue you under Australian laws and the US would (theoretically) help nail you.

All comes down to the local laws, though (with the exception of patents... they're global). Where're you located?

Go to bluhatseo and read on "cycle sites". As far as legality, it's kind of a gray area. Also you need to take precautions as people will complain to your hosting provider and to google. Although if you are not sending trackbacks it's probably less likely anyone will take notice, although some will at some point.

AFAIK copyrights don't need to be registered in the USA either now. So you're screwed there too.

as far as I know copyright is automatically "created" as soon as you produce something, be it text, images, art, music, whatever everywhere, I don't think the country where you are matters

Icecube said:

as far as I know copyright is automatically "created" as soon as you produce something, be it text, images, art, music, whatever everywhere, I don't think the country where you are matters

Click to expand...

You're probably right.. for the creation of copyright itself it doesn't matter which country you're in, but the legal mechanics do differ between countries.
i.e. if you reproduced something but gave a link to the original post, this is going to be treated one way in some countries and different in others... So, whether reproduction is "illegal" may differ depending on the country the copyright was created in, and the technicalities of its legal system.

illkity: very true. this stuff is fairly rare in practice, and costs money to pursue... so what's technically legal isn't always the way things work.