I don't think ANYONE has been arrested for making a GIF. Like Mark said, aren't PNG's good? Couldn't something be created in a common GIF editing program like Adobe ImageReady and then be converted to PNG? Actually... that program does PNG anyway... oops!
Regardless, I prefer dynamic visuals. No looping animations. I think Toby made a comment like "at least you can take pride in the fact that you are not as easily ammused by looping animations as your friends are". Or something like that.... I can't find the actual post. hehe
"free" means differant things in differant situations...