Site Policies & Terms of Service

Why is such an important thing so discounted?

[justgowithit]

I've got a pretty involved service based site ready for BETA. Before I go live I need some solid site policies and terms of service statements drafted.

At first the natural reaction for me was to call the lawyer and go from there. After some looking around online (and in the WW archives) I've found that many people are recommending to others that they just copy bits and pieces from already posted policies and terms from related sites.

While this seems like a money-saving, albeit shady, proposition that I'm considering, something about it doesn't sit right with me. Isn't this blatant copyright infringement? Furthermore, these documents are literally the shield that protects your rear if and when there's a legal issue.

For those of you that copy from other sites - do you really feel protected, or is putting something online more of a means to an end than a legitimate policy and terms?

[clearvision]

Instead of 'copying" others terms and conditions per say, you can review what they have included in theirs to see if it fits your situation. Create your own draft copy and have a lawyer review it to be sure all you t's are crossed it is protecting you legally. It will cost you less if it's just a review instead of them creating the whole document.

Most terms and conditions are are copied legal "babble" that gets inserted in every document and the lawyers copy it themselves.

Am I advocating copyright infringement....no. But using others ideas to create new ones of your own...yes.

[vincevincevince]

Just be prepared for your lawyer to tell you that most of the things in the terms are toothless in legal terms and is only there to quote in customer service, or is there to make the policy too long for most users to read down to the bits they'd not like...