Discussion:
What is the name of your state? Michigan
I work for company "a". Company is collecting motor vehicle safety standards from state Web sites. We are putting this info on CD and then delivering it to company "b" as a service.
I know the info (state laws) is public knowledge, but after seeing copyright notices on some of the Web sites, the personnel involved were worried that we needed to include a disclaimer with the info we provide. MY manager is ADAMANT about "covering our butts".
Since most of the Web sites I've seen include copyrights with verbiage such as "this is the intellectual property of so and so" I can't find something that works for us in this scenario. The information from these Web sites don't really belong to the webmasters/websites. These are public state laws that we are copying from their site.
Does anyone have an example of how our disclaimer should state this? I have a feeling we are being overly careful, but I need some sort of disclaimer to appease my manager. Not sure why he doesn't just contact our law department.
Any insight/examples will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance for reviewing this.
Dan
Answer:
Tell the boss he needs to contact your legal department for an opinion and correctly worded disclaimer. If he balks, tell him you would gladly write one if he also signs a waiver of responsibility for any lawsuits that result from your disclaimer.