Post History

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/31268
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/31268
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

On the contrary, they do copy from each other, all the time. See this link[On Contract Drafting and Plagiarism](http://www.adamsdrafting.com/contract-drafting-and-plagiarism/).

The key paragraph there is this, I have highlighted the most important sentence:

> In mainstream drafting, copying-and-pasting from other contracts is certainly no sin. But that’s not because unauthorized copying is OK. Instead, it’s because everyone is copying from a common pool of contract verbiage that they tweak to suit their own purposes. **_It can’t be attributed to a single source, so there’s no one to provide consent for copying._** And no one is in a position to claim that they’ve been harmed by the copying.

This means that if you see the same "legalese boilerplate" (identically worded phrases or sentences or even paragraphs) from multiple sources (like if two works are copyrighted by different entities), then the boilerplate is not copyrighted or copyrightable. Copyright must belong to one and only one entity.

So if I see something used by three or four authors or owners, I presume it is safe to copy verbatim.

I would warn you should USE IT verbatim, legal language can be grammatically awkward and feel like they beg to be corrected by writers, but might mean something subtly different in court, if they were. Sometimes the language being used is taken verbatim from an actual law or a formal legal opinion from some case, and should not be altered.

Original score: 1