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It can be argued either way as to whether copyright vests in basic documents like terms of use, however, I would advise you to err on the side of caution and as
by grabeh 14y ago
It can be argued either way as to whether copyright vests in basic documents like terms of use, however, I would advise you to err on the side of caution and assume that if they aren't clearly marked as being free to reuse (for example under the relevant CC licence) you shouldn't use them.
People can spend a fair chunk of money on retaining a lawyer to draft terms of use so might be a little bit pissed off if they see a third party has copied them. The reality is that there will unlikely to be any actual loss suffered but still, you don't necessarily want to piss someone off who you may want to work with one day.
Also, although most terms of use will contain generic content, you may like to consider that certain issues may be specific to your business. For example, personal data, risk, usage of user-generated content.
So if you're going to copy, try to find terms for a site which closely mirrors your own and which is incorporated in the same state/country as your own site. You can then either copy and take the risk you will piss off them off if they find out, or you could take lessons from the content (although of course there is no guarantee that they will be up to scratch, the bigger the site, the more likely they are to be half-decent).
There's also a range of template sites that can help you out for either free or relatively inexpensively. Docracy.com for example...
/edit - heh, didn't realise you yourself were a template site!
- tzaman 14y agothank you for the Docracy link, much appreciated!