Hi, I was just wondering. Would it be legal if I, lets say, create a website and host some freeware software on it, and allow the people to download the software for free, but, eg. to make the download links visible, I would charge a monthly website subscription. So, I would not be actually charging for the software, but for the website. Would this kind of thing be legal?
As long as you are not violating the license the software was released under. If the license says you can not charge for access to an area of a site to download the software from, than it is illegal. You're also going to need to have other content besides the download links.
That's all true. But chances of it being profitable seems unlikely. That would be my only concern about it. Legality aside, I doubt very many people would pay for "freeware" under any condition. Who knows though.
If you don't tell them, they will. People do it all the time just becaue they don't know any better. Remember, this is a webmaster forum, we theoretically should know better and should research things before we purchase, most people don't here though, that is why there are so many scammers on DP. But, if he wants to make this profitable, he's going to have to have other incentives for people to buy from him. I run a site where I have a premium membership, the third in my signature. I plan on providing other incentives for people such as cheaper advertisement slots, etc. It's just gotten off the ground last weekend so I don't have any members, but, hopefully soon. Speaking of which, I shoudl write another articles there lol.
The biggest draw on the Internet is Bit Torrent and pirated software. I find it amazing that anyone could find people willing to pay for free software. I guess if you know how you can market ice cubes to Eskimo's. That much I am sure of.
Hmm, I guess these kind of things do not write on the terms of use, at least not litteraly like that. Ahh well, I'll just have to give it a try... LOL, some people are so ignorant and lazy that they will "buy" even if it's free =D Well lol, from one point of view it may seem like i'm going to do exactly that, selling ice cubes to Eskimos. But, I'm an honest man =D, I'm gonna make an offer to my custumers they can't refuse. An ultra inovative website with nice design, and some new never seen thingies, and it'll just migh work. Also, I did find a website which had some freeware games on it, and to download them, you had to pay subscriptiton :\ well if they can do such a thing, i can do it also... I guess :S The stupid thing is that i forgot the name of that site, so i can't study their business model. Anyone maybe knows the name of the site?
I wish that these websites would make there own versions of the programs based on the frostwire code. So its not such a big scam.
The main thing is if it works for you that's fantastic. The game business model may be a license scenario to use the games on your own site. That's wouldn't be freeware though, they are selling a license.
It's not really a scam so long as he has some unique content in the paid area and he doesn't say anywhere it is the only place to get them. People spending money without doing their own due dillegince before hand, like how they do here on DP and there are so many people that get scammed here. You could also think about taking the software and modifying the code some to make it at least a bit unique. I was talking to a programmer friend of mine last night, she did something like you are doing and made a killing just by adding a unique feature or two, she even went and redid the code for a program, completely different, but it did the exact same stuff lol.
Hmm, well, programming is nothing new to me, but getting the source code of the freeware software from those who worked on it just so i can modify it and then sell it is practically impossible. Even if I would somehow get the source code, doing changes would take time, so it would not be much practical. I do not intend to scam or trick any costumers into thinking I own the software or that the software isn't free, or it can't be found somewhere else on the internet. But I'm just going to offer a user friendly website from which visitors can download a lot of free software conveniently for a small subscription cost. Anyway, I'm probably going to do what i was planning. And who knows, maybe in a couple of months I'll be asking you for legal help from a guy that sued me for charging for his freeware software lol.
You should be good if you read the type of license it is released under. You can go to hotscripts.com and download all their software and sell it because of the license it was released under.