Legal Disclaimers Help
 

I am finishing up a Java App and I am getting ready to put it up on the internet for small-time sales.

It seems like pretty much all software has a legal disclaimer, and I was wondering how important that was, and if there is a website that discusses what should be covered and why, or if I should just use another app's disclaimer as a base for mine.

I also wondered if I should put my real name on the project. Why/why not?

Thanks!

Trust me (said the used-car salesman), this is not the place to seek legal advice. It's going to be worth just about what you pay for it.

Fair enough...can someone at least tell me how copyrights work?

Thanks.

Search the forum, using "copyright", for some bad opinions. You will find more, and more accurate, information if you let Google lead you to the right places. This may sound condescending to you, but truthfully, it is not. If you think your work has true value, treat is as such.

>can someone at least tell me how copyrights work?
To be honest, I'm not sure anyone really knows the whole story. Basically, your work is copyrighted even if you don't say so, though an official copyright does make it easier to collect damages if it's violated. The legal disclaimer you're looking at is (ideally) written by a lawyer to protect the author from excessive legal issues if the program they distribute causes damage or death. The severity of the disclaimer is directly proportional to how worried you are about theft and problems. For example, my personal libraries typically have the following disclaimer: