Sorry, wasn't sure what forum to put this in... I'll make this brief and simple.

My game has copyrighted music in it (i.e. Final Fantasy and Chrono Cross music). I want my game to be free, but I would also like to have a "Donate" option available.

If you don't make people pay for your game, but have a donate option (not necessarily for the game, but for the developer), are you infringing on copyright laws and gonna get sued?

No. Technically, if they want to give you money, that's fine, they can't do anything about it. As long as you aren't asking for the money. And, hell, if they really have a problem with it, the people were just donating to your game studio. They've got no right to say they can't.

Well, this may be more suited in one of the discussion forums.

True, just moved it over to the Tavern. =]

And RD is correct, you really don't have anything to worry about regarding copyrights when accepting donations for your studio, or for your own personal development.
If it were something like "donate to support this game" you might get a little bit of controversy, but it's still within the reasonable bounds of indie development (and less about what pieces are in the game, more about its development).

Just one thing to add; while asking money for your studio (and not the game) should be fine, you should still be prepared for a C&D if Square-Enix decides you should not be including their music in their games. In fact, regardless if you are hosting your game at your own studio or a forum, any time you use a rip (credit or not), that's something to be prepared for.

In any case, with the amount of free sources available (Sakari-Infinity, Short Story, Atelier Nonta) you really don't have to use copyrighted material for music, especially ones that are already overused in fan games such as Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger.

Thanks guys! And thanks for the links, amerk!

I think for now I'm just going to leave it how it is...and worst case scenario I'll have to go through and change the music. That wouldn't take me more than a week I'm sure.