Emoticons & Legal Issue

[nohaber]

I am working on a forum that is minimal in features. I use an addon to support smilies. It says that the images are copyrighted and that I should make my own smilies. I added a lot of other emoticons. Basically, I've seen these emoticons on a lot of forums (Eastern European forums, here copyright laws don't hold much water).
Is there a legal issue with them?
They are really cool. Like smilies shooting each other, puking etc. etc. I think they bring a lot of life to a forum.
If there's a legal issue, is there a place I can get free emoticons that I can use on my forum?

[MarkB]

Where is your server? If it's in the US, then you fall under US law I believe...

[tomek]

nohaber:
http://forums.invisionpower.com/inde...howtopic=40799

lots of good smilies there... (the thread has over 100 pages)

not sure about the copyright on them though...

[Anat]

I think there are websites that let you take smilies from them legally. Maybe you'll need to link back - not sure.

[incka]

I've seen loads of forum smiley websites that let you put them on your forums.

[intelliot]

There are some smilies that have been copied so many millions of times, nobody knows who they're copyrighted to anymore.

[ozgression]

True, but it would be better to be safe than sorry (in my opinion).
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