Are legal texts protected?

[Benco]

My plan is to add a legal section to my site where I present the relevant laws for my niche. The idea is that I would get lots of free quality content that is relevant to my users and helps with the search engines. The legal texts are easily accessible so it would be a bit of a copy-and-paste job...

But I am not quite sure if am breaking laws by publishing them :-)
So far I think that legal texts are not protected by copyright as long as I publish exactly the official text. Collections of laws might be protected as a database, but when I put together my own collection there should be no problem...

What do you think?

[Quadrille]

In the UK, laws are subject to copyright restriction; that may be different in your country.

Check the copyright notice on the site you'd be taking them from.

It probably varies from country to country; you may not need to pay ... but you may well need to ask.

[Lipik]

In belgium, there are no copyrights on text published by authoritys (like laws, etc.. even speeches in parliament are copyrightfree)

[stapel]

Why do you feel that copy-n-pasting legal documents would be helpful? Since the original documents would have higher rankings (page ranks, SERPs, etc), users would likely find the original sites first. Why would people want to look at word-for-word copies on your site?

Regardless of possible copyright issues, I would respectfully enquire: Do you have nothing to offer of your own, that you have to copy other sites' content? If so, why would anyone need to visit your site? If not, then what, exactly, are you offering? (Lists of links don't count.)

Eliz.

[ceestand]

I can't answer for Benco, but IF you can find the section of legal code online, it tends to be horribly formatted. I've seen plenty of sites that carry US law on their pages and outrank the government site itself, simply because they made it more readable or more easily searched.

I'm pretty sure that in the US, any publicly funded works (i.e. the federal tax code) are public domain. I've heard there are restrictions on certain FDA documents.

[jtara]

There are a number of legal texts in the U.S. that are at least claimed as copyrighted. It's a contentious issue.

Most notable are building codes - basic building codes as well as electrical, plumbing, etc. The local codes most often reference national and/or state codes which are published by industry organizations, and which are quite aggressive about going after violators.

It's ridiculous, but that's the way it is. IMO, these should be freely available as a matter of public safety.

A homeowner who thinks they might be in violation has to PAY to find out! You see tradesmen all the time with obsolete books, because they don't want to spend the (fairly substantial) cost of a updated code.

(Why do people keep coming here for free legal advice? I think I will ask my attorney if he will do free web site development for me!)

[Benco]

I understand that the term "copy and paste" is like a red rag to anyone concerned about copyright. But in this particular case, I feel there is nothing wrong with it, at least ethically. I am not stealing the creative works of others, in fact the actual "author" would be our parliament...

Besides better formatting I could offer a clear benefit by presenting important information right where it is needed, and restrict the presentation to the relevant paragraphs of the respective law.

Anyways, it might be that I am right morally but not legally so I will have to ask a lawyer. Thanks to all of you.