help! Copyright laws or legal advice Please

Na wrote:
> when you register a domain name, your details (home address, phone number,
> everything!) are posted to the net.

Certainly the registrant's details are available - unless you opt for an anonymisation service. However, depending on the registrar and the type of domain you're registering, some details may or may not be required or could be business rather than personal details. It's not a case of "everything!" being published. Only the information you provide.

Personally,  I don't get hung up over details about me being on the 'net and most other people really needn't fuss either.

I remember a ridiculous situation in the early days of this website when someone wrote to complain that their name and phone number appeared on the website - as bookings details for a show. The same name and number was splashed across hundreds of posters and flyers and in newspapers and newsletters advertising the show, but they didn't want the phone number on the web. Oh, and you could look up their phone number AND street address in the white pages online with just a surname and initial.

:-)

I agree that, unless you're prepared to invest money in maintaining the website on an ongoing basis or want something particularly flash or unique, it's probably worth looking at acquiring the skills and undertaking the job yourself.

Seriously though, you really want to to undertake some cost/benefit analysis. For the work/cost involved, what exposure/value are you getting in return? Or this another vanity domain?

I heard from a member of one theatre company the other day frustrated at trying to convince their publicist that they needed to publish on Theatre Australia as well as on their own website.

When we looked at the web traffic to their website versus traffic to their company page here, there was three times as much traffic to their company page here as to their entire website elsewhere. Once you took into account traffic to individual pages on this site advertising their productions it blew out to 8 times as much traffic coming here as visiting the site they're paying to maintain.

I think you'll find that ArtsConnect is not free. 

Cheers
Grant 

--
Director, actor and administrator of this website