Can I use somebody else's legal contract without copyright infringement?

Question

I have an online classified website and need a terms of service and privacy policy. Is it illegal for me to take another site's contracts (like Craigslist) and use it as my contract as long as I take out "Craigslist" and put it my company name?

I've spoken to a couple of lawyers and they told me that I could do this and that there was nothing I could be sued for because there aren't copyrights on legal documents. Is this true?

Answer 1

There may be aspects of any document, including legal documents, that are protected by copyright. It's impossible to say in your situation whether that's true without reviewing the document. There is no bright-line rule in copyright law that legal documents cannot be entitled to protection by copyright.

That said, I would be surprised if a typical "Terms of Service" on a website has any protectable aspects. Even so, I'd be even more surprised if someone came after you for infringement.

Edit: Just to clarify a previous answer, under current U.S. law, a copyright notice (e.g., the copyright symbol) is generally beneficial, but is not necessary to receive copyright protection. Generally speaking, a lack of a copyright notice is not necessarily an indication that you are free to copy a work.

Answer 2

Interesting. If the legal document you wish to copy (then cut and paste your name, product description, services, etc) is not marked with any form of the copyright symbol, I think you can do so. Probably because the document is spelled out as to proper form somewhere, and the one you wanted to copy was modeled after some original document.

Watch out, though, because the Copyright Law of 1975 added a few legal alternative forms. (C) is a copyright symbol as is (c) (lowercase c). The little c in a circle is another. But there is precedent for spelling out the claim of copyright in some prominent place. Also watch out for the clause "all rights reserved" or variations thereof. That's another one that can catch you napping if you aren't careful.

Answer 3

Generic legal terms and clauses cannot be copyrighted, so, yes, you could copy these from someone else's document.