A small group of friends and I have completed a small game. It first started out as a school project and was never intended to be distributed. But we put alot of work into it even after we turned it in. BUT we used a couple of BGM songs from some animes we watch. I talked to a friend at animesuki.net and he said that if the songs were not licensed in the US the chances of us being sued were slim to none. I checked the list of licensed animes on animesuki.net and only one of the animes that our game takes a song from is licensed in the US. I have a couple of quetions: When I say distribute I mean through the internet. Is it legal for us to distribute this comercially and if not as freeware? If I took out the songs that appear in licensed animes could I distribute it commercially/freeware? Does the fact that We are Distributing over the internet nullify the fact that the songs are not licensed in the US? If we did distribute it and there were some legal problems would we be warned to stop distributing and then sued or just sued? If we were to distribute it as freeware but made a sequel to it without the songs, could we commercially distribute the sequel legally or would they still expect royalties because the sequel depends on the first game? Is there a website where i can find out more about intelectual property copyrights? Is there a way i can find out how much it would cost to purchase the rights to the songs? I would like to thank everyone who post as well as Gamedev.net in advance for the help =).

First off, you asked a ton of good questions. More than I would've thought of. Second I'm not a lawyer so take my word with much less than a grain of salt.

The only real way to besure is to go to a lawyer, and talk it over with him. He's the only one who really knows the laws, and how they are applied.

However, in yourcase I'd assume that as long as you made note of what the songs were, and where they came from(the anime), and who scored them and things, that if you distributed it as freeware you probably would be okay. Selling it starts to get iffy, and I'm not even gonna comment.