What constitutes giving legal advice? On sites such as this one, people are often concerned about non-lawyers "giving legal advice" or "practicing law without a license". What, exactly, constitutes such actions? I'm particularly interested in the situation in the United States, since that's where the StackExchange servers are.
It depends highly on which jurisdiction you're referring to. This is one of the areas where it varies state to state. &quot;Practicing law&quot; is not generally defined in statute, but the Wikipedia definition defines it as (emphasis mine): giving legal advice to clients, drafting legal documents for clients, and representing clients in legal negotiations and court proceedings such as lawsuits, and is applied to the professional services of a lawyer or attorney at law, barrister, solicitor, or civil law notary. Wikipedia defines Legal advice as the giving of a professional or formal opinion regarding the substance or procedure of the law in relation to a particular factual situation. and displays the following enforcement provision (emphasis mine): Criminal laws and enforcement of &quot;Unauthorized Practice of Law (UPL)&quot; statutes is the organized bar's preferred method. Thus, New Jersey has a law which makes it a “disorderly persons offense” to knowingly to engage in the unauthorized practice of law, and a “crime in the fourth degree” to commit UPL if one (a) creates a false impression that one is a lawyer; (b) derives a benefit from UPL, or (c) causes an injury by UPL. See also IANAL, which has some information about usage on the Internet: The case law standard for determining what comments cross the line is generally &quot;the application of law to facts specific to an individual seeking legal advice&quot;.
In the US, there is no general legal duty to aid. Certain states (Wisconsin, Minnesota, Washington – about 10 states) have imposed such a duty. Otherwise, duty arises only because you have caused the peril, or because you have certain pre-existing relations with the person. Pennsylvania does have a duty to assist law, applicable to drivers of vehicles involved in an accident that results in injury or death (involved in, not just caused). PA also has a Good Samaritan law which relieves a person of liability for a good faith rendering of assistance, which does not otherwise impose a positive duty on individuals.
It is not critical, however, it can help and it can't hurt. You own the copyright and if you were to take legal action you would need to prove this - the notice is evidence you can use to do so. Note that some jurisdictions (including the US) require registration of copyright before commencing legal action and that damages only accrue from the date of registration. A more significant issue is: what rights does the website owner have? They may believe that their contract with you involved a transfer of the copyright to them: did it or didn't it or doesn't it say?
There are three main aspects to this: Its their website, and their terms of service. They can enforce those terms, or change them (in some appropriate manner). You have no recourse if they remove you, block you, or delete your account, for example. That's the measure that you would probably have, virtually every time. To claim damages, or litigate beyond just website access control, requires a legal claim. But there's a catch there. To claim damages, they need to show actual damage, which they wish to be compensated for. If you misused their website but no actual harm can be shown, the total damage claimable is zero, whether or not you followed their rules. Merely entering dishonest information isn't by itself harm. So they would have to show they suffered damage/harm because of that, which is directly attributable to your behaviour, was foreseeably harmful etc, or similar. They also need to consider legal costs, and ability to enforce, especially if you are in a different country. If for some reason the computer use was also illegal, then a criminal act could be committed and they could notify law enforcement. For example suppose you did this in the little known country of Honestania, where the law says that to prevent trolling and online abuse, anything posted on social media under any but your own legal name is a crime. Or suppose you'd been banned from the system and ignoring/evading such a ban was criminal computer use or criminal trespass due to the forbidden/unauthorised access (which can happen in several places). But this is purely for completeness; I guess you'd know if you were taking it further, into criminal computer use.
The origin of a lawsuit will not be a license, but copyright law. Licenses are exemptions from copyright law enforcement. The original author holds the copyright. That person did offer a license O to the third party, but that third party did not take up that offer. Hence, there is a copyright violation, and a cause for a lawsuit. It is up to the original author what might be demanded there, but the usual demand is such suits is for damages. However, it is common practice to settle the case amicably outside the courts by agreeing to the original license O, although this may come with undisclosed extra terms. The problem with a lawsuit is that enforcement of the original license offer O is hard, because copyright law generally does not cover such licensing. The license terms L are mostly irrelevant as that person is not a copyright owner so there is nothing to be licensed.
Yes, you can. An excellent example is this very website - at the bottom of this page you will find a series of links in the footer, one of which is &quot;Terms of Service&quot;. I think you will agree that most people using the Law SE are making no money from it or paying no money to use it and yet the terms of service sets out in black and white what a user of this site can do, and what the repercussions can be if they breach the ToS, so it serves a purpose as an excellent example for your question.
I'm a notary. If someone showed me a marked-up license, I'd refuse to perform the notarization, and make a note of the persons name and phone number, to make sure I would never make another appointment with the person. Is there a law that says I have to refuse? I don't think so. Is there is a law that says I can refuse if I have any doubts about the person's identity? Absolutely.
A web site's Terms of Service are not a contract but, rather, a license. law.washington.edu has an interesting discussion of contracts vs. licenses and asks the question, "Does it matter?" In the case of a web site, the owner of the web site is granting you a license, subject to certain terms, to access the web site and use it. No consideration is required for a license. From the linked article, which discusses copyright, "In the context of copyright law, a 'license' is a permission to do an act that, without the permission, would be unlawful." In the case of a web site's terms and conditions, the owner is granting permission to you to access and use the web site subject to the terms of the license. Typically, such a license will require you to release any liability that may accrue because of your use of the site. The Stack Exchange license, in fact, grants certain permissions related to copyright, "Subscriber may download or copy the Content, and other items displayed on the Network for download, for personal use, provided that Subscriber maintains all copyright and other notices contained in such Content." The Stack Exchange license also places requirements on those who contribute to discussion including a requirement to "perpetually and irrevocably [license] to Stack Exchange" anything we post. In this case, by pressing the "Post Your Answer" question, I have agreed to license my creation, this answer, to Stack Exchange.