miner2049er
Junior Member
CALIFORNIA.
I'm located in California, and in the process of starting my own company. Initially, I will just be doing business in the USA.
When it comes to drawing up various documents such as:
- contracts
- non-disclosure agreements
- terms & conditions
- privacy policies
(1) would it be OK to directly cut-and-paste, word for word, sentences and/or paragraphs from other company's documents, which are available online?
Or are there copyright issues involved, requiring me to change the wording i.e. use different words and/or the order of words?
And does this have any similarities with the 1980's Trivial Pursuit court case, where the company were found not guilty of plagiarism, because they had obtained their questions from multiple sources, not just one place, and thus it was classed as research?
I do not know if later on, Trivial Pursuit also faced legal action in countries outside of the USA. I know copyright law differs in various countries, and any information I am seeking is just related to US law at the moment.
(2) Would I in fact be able to copy the above-mentioned documents from a single source, in their entirety?
Any advice regarding these two questions, links to articles etc. would be most appreciated.
Thanks in advance, Simon.
I'm located in California, and in the process of starting my own company. Initially, I will just be doing business in the USA.
When it comes to drawing up various documents such as:
- contracts
- non-disclosure agreements
- terms & conditions
- privacy policies
(1) would it be OK to directly cut-and-paste, word for word, sentences and/or paragraphs from other company's documents, which are available online?
Or are there copyright issues involved, requiring me to change the wording i.e. use different words and/or the order of words?
And does this have any similarities with the 1980's Trivial Pursuit court case, where the company were found not guilty of plagiarism, because they had obtained their questions from multiple sources, not just one place, and thus it was classed as research?
I do not know if later on, Trivial Pursuit also faced legal action in countries outside of the USA. I know copyright law differs in various countries, and any information I am seeking is just related to US law at the moment.
(2) Would I in fact be able to copy the above-mentioned documents from a single source, in their entirety?
Any advice regarding these two questions, links to articles etc. would be most appreciated.
Thanks in advance, Simon.