How to provide a legally sound license, or "terms of use", for a web application

Question

I am looking for information about providing a license, or "terms of use", for a web application. The Wikipedia article is very limited, and it seems that unlike "downloadable" software (or perhaps "installable" software, for lack of a better term), for which there is much more information, not so much has been written specifically for the licensing of web applications.

Would you say that hiring a lawyer to construct a legally sound "terms of use", or disclaimer, for your web application is absolutely necessary?

Someone asked: Which jurisdiction? My response here is: World-wide. I guess this opens up another topic, i.e. what jurisdictional limits you should take into consideration.

Answer 1

Here are some UK-centric ones

Answer 2

What are you hoping to cover? Are you worried about your code being stolen or someone doing something stupid on the back of something they see on your site? (Or something else entirely.)

Could you edit to widen what you hope your disclaimer or terms would hope to cover?

Hiring a lawyer might well turn out to be the soundest advice, but the wrong lawyer being asked the wrong questions could end in disaster ...

Answer 3

Hire a lawyer. Undesirable (and costly) as it seems, it can cost you a helluva lot more to get your TOS wrong.

Answer 4

Before you hire a lawyer, determine in which country (juristiction) you're web-service lives in. You can state in the ToS, that the laws of country X apply. There's no such thing as 'international internet law', so choose a country.

US law does not specify alot, so you can dictate the terms. EU laws dictate alot more, about what can be put into a ToS. US lawyers do not know very much about EU cosumer protection laws, and vice-versa :)