Copyright and Contract Boilerplate

We recently mentioned a case in which an insurer was found liable for copyright violation for taking boilerplate language from another company's contract.  Over at the Conglomerate Blog, Gordon Smith (Wisconsin) is leading an interesting discussion about the issue today.  Although the discussion is focused on litigation documents, the same arguments generally apply to contracts.

Mentioned in the discussion is a good piece by Northern Kentucky's Davida Isaacs, The Highest Form of Flattery? Application of the Fair Use Defense against Copyright Claims for Unauthorized Appropriation of Litigation Documents, forthcoming in the Missouri Law Review.  Many of the cases she discusses deal with claims of copyright in contract boilerplate.

[Frank Snyder]