Discussion:
Howdy Y'all,
I'm from Washington state.
When a contract is written between two parties, who owns the copyright to that contract?
For example, if I write a contract between a contractor and myself for work done on my house, do I have the right to republish or reuse the contract, in whole or in part? And if the contractor writes the contract? What about generic agreements, such as credit card terms and conditions? What if such terms and conditions are marked with the copyright symbol, and what if they are not?
Perhaps I should get right to the point - of the varied types of legal documents I agree to (contracts, divorce and child custody papers, credit-card agreements, etc.), how free am I to republish these documents on the Internet?
And finally, if you know of any resources that explain this sort of thing, I'd be happy if you could tell me about them!
Thanks in Advance,
Emerson

Answer:
"When a contract is written between two parties, who owns the copyright to that contract?"
The copyright is owned by whomever created the document.
"For example, if I write a contract between a contractor and myself for work done on my house, do I have the right to republish or reuse the contract, in whole or in part?"
Yes.
"And if the contractor writes the contract?"
No.
"What about generic agreements, such as credit card terms and conditions?"
No.
"What if such terms and conditions are marked with the copyright symbol, and what if they are not?"
Doesn't matter. A copyright notice is not required. Once upon a time a copyright notice was required, but not anymore. Simply creating the document creates a copyright in the document.
"Perhaps I should get right to the point - of the varied types of legal documents I agree to (contracts, divorce and child custody papers, credit-card agreements, etc.), how free am I to republish these documents on the Internet?"
Unless you own the copyright to the document or have permission from the copyright owner to republish the document, you have no right to republish the document on the internet. The only exception here is legal documents created by a state or the federal government, like court forms and the like. These forms can be freely reproduced.
For your website, you'll either need permission from the copyright owners to reproduce the documents, or you'll need to draft documents yourself, so that you own the copyrights.