While looking at the [[Legionnaires' disease]] page, I noticed a lot of information that looked like it had been copied from somewhere. Indeed, it had come from http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/diseaseinfo/legionellosis_g.htm. The person who had put it on the page claimed that it was public domain. Looking at the CDC's home page, I find "In general all information presented in these pages and all items available for download are for public use."
Does this mean we can use the information at that website?
Zoe
--------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Shopping - Send Flowers for Valentine's Day
Zoe wrote:
Does this mean we can use the information at that website?
Almost everything produced by the United States government is not subject to copyright. This means that almost everything on U.S. government websites is not subject to copyright, but there are important exceptions.
For example, on the old whitehouse.gov website they had some nice biographies of all the Presidents.... except they didn't produce them, they were using them by permission from a copyright book. We would not be able to use those.
In general, if the publication is a publication *of the government*, then it's legal to use it, unless it says otherwise.
--Jimbo
At 01:13 AM 2/16/03 -0800, Zoe wrote:
While looking at the [[Legionnaires' disease]] page, I noticed a lot of information that looked like it had been copied from somewhere. Indeed, it had come from http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/diseaseinfo/legionellosis_g.htmhttp://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/diseaseinfo/legionellosis_g.htm. The person who had put it on the page claimed that it was public domain. Looking at the CDC's home page, I find "In general all information presented in these pages and all items available for download are for public use."
Does this mean we can use the information at that website?
Yes we can. All publications by the US government are in the public domain. This does *not* apply to publications by other governments: it is a deliberate choice by the US government.