Found this http://www.codecomments.com/archive409-2006-1-491450.html and so I'm back to square one with legality question. I also see bunch of examples in different languages using this technique...

>The oFile is an object. You can analyze its properties, oFIle.IsFolder, oFile.Name, oFile.Path, e.t.c.
>
>>If the SourceDir and zip file are from the same directory, then there is an error that file could not be copied to itself. How can we prevent this error?
>>
>>>I tried Yuri's suggestion... VERY COOL and FREE! WinZip will open the files if you need to verify the results. I also noticed it compressed the subdirectories as well. I don't know if you can do single files, but if you can create a directory and compress just that directory it works great.