

Ask HN: Is copying (and modifying) Terms of Service legal? - tzaman

Hey HN, we're about to release an MVP for which we'll be charging subscriptions. Because we want to do it right and be legally protected I was wondering whether it's okay to take existing ToS (like facebook's or whatever) and just change the names (and paragraphs, where suitable).<p>Thanx!
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ypc
It's (usually) not.

We (Yapca) drafted an agreement for web apps with monthly subcriptions:
[http://yapca.com/legal-forms/terms-service-agreement-web-
app...](http://yapca.com/legal-forms/terms-service-agreement-web-
applications-1)

I'm not sure if there are others out there. Update: WordPress.com's ToS are
free under a CC license, actually.

~~~
grabeh
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
thank you for the Docracy link, much appreciated!

