> I thought it was only illegal if I was selling, renting, or leasing it to someone!!
> Not GIVING it to someone!

Any sort of distribution is illegal. Breaking a copyright is breaking a copyright whether or not any money changes hands. With software, you are only (generally) given the license to use one copy. The same thing goes for something like CDs or Movies. You can't buy a video, and legally make 15 copies for all your friends. You can loan the physical tape to them, but you can't duplicate it to distribute. Likewise you could legally loan out a disc of a game that you own, but you couldn't let your friend copy all the data to their computer, and play it that way.

Another way to think of it is this: you couldn't copy stuff that's at RinkWorks and use it on your webpage without Sam's (or the writer's) permission. Why? You aren't charging anything, so it should be fine, right? The problem is that RinkWorks has the exclusive rights to the content there. The company that owns Infocom's games owns the exclusive rights to Zork (remember, you only purchase a license and the physical media when you buy software, you don't actually get control over the copyright).