We've discussed "legal" questions twice before, [here](https://gamedev.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/283/proper-solution-for-legal-questions) and [here](https://gamedev.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/598/are-legal-questions-allowed-here). 

I'd like to drill down specifically into the "Is It Legal" questions that we often seem to receive, such as these:

> 
> [Legal Lego game](https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/24082/legal-lego-game)
> 
> 
> [How closely can a game legally resemble another?](https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/1653/how-closely-can-a-game-resemble-another-game-without-legal-problems)
> 
> 
> [How legal would it be to use some elements of the Half Life universe in my non comercial, indie game?](https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/24171/how-legal-would-it-be-to-use-some-elements-of-the-half-life-universe-in-my-non-c)
> 
> 
> [Legality of using names in a game?](https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/4868/legality-of-using-names-in-a-game)
> 
> 
> [How closely can a game legally resemble another?](https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/1653/how-closely-can-a-game-resemble-another-game-without-legal-problems)
> 
> 
> [Could I make my own pokemon game without running into a copyright issue?](https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/24189/could-i-make-my-own-pokemon-game-without-running-into-a-copyright-issue)
> 
> 
> 

I'm not questioning whether these topics are on-topic for a game development site. The boundaries of legal and ethical behaviour certainly are legitimate things that any creative professional needs to know.

What I'm questioning is whether we, as a site that builds up static knowledge as a future resource, are an appropriate place for that knowledge to be generated, stored and then provided for decades into the future to random internet strangers. Unlike the mathematics behind quaternions, laws change over time, and our answers *will* eventually become invalid, even if those answers were correct at the time they were posted (which doesn't even seem to be particularly common).

**Are we willing to live with ourselves if someone acts on an answer we, as a site, have published -- perhaps decades earlier -- and is sued/imprisoned/etc as a result?**