This is an excellent post at Aviva Directory that covers a number of aspects of U.S. law that come up in this forum again and again (the post is actually only about "blogger law" but much of it applies to forums and regular web sites as well): http://www.avivadirectory.com/blogger-law/ The topics: 1. Whether to Disclose Paid Posts 2. Is Deep Linking Legal 3. The Legal Use of Images and Thumbnails 4. Laws that Protect You from Stolen Content 5. Domain Name Trademark Issues 6. Handling Private Data About Your Readers 7. Who Owns User-Developed Content, and Can You Delete It? 8. The Duty to Monitor Your Blog Comments and Liability 9. Basic Tax Law Issues 10. Limited Liability Laws and Incorporating 11. Spam Laws and Which Unsolicited Emails are Legal 12. Are Bloggers Protected by Journalism Shield Laws? The post goes into details about both the law and the best ways to stay out of trouble. Of course other countries have different laws, but if you are doing business in the U.S. or your web site or blog is hosted on U.S. servers this applies to you too. Also related: the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Legal Guide for Bloggers
Wow this is an aweosme article it really helped alot, ill be sure to memorize these, and never break them.