Using US government content on my site

[Jakob]

I read an article yesterday stating that it is legal to use publications created by the US government on your own sites.

In theori I would be allowed to use the content from http://www.health.gov/ and build my own site from it.

Can anyone confirm or dismiss this statement?

[Mike]

AFAIK, the article should have led to a site which lists specific publications which are free to use. Not all the government produced literature is free to use.

[aspen]

Almost everything produced by the Government is public domain. What is not public domain is content produced by a third party that is under license by the Government.

Health.gov I believe is just a directory of health information. Some of the links point to content that you can duplicate, such as from the FDA, CDC, or NIH. Other links point to places like The American Medical Association, or other non governmental agencies. This content you cannot reproduce.

Even though a copyright statement is not necessary for copyrighted works, it is a good indicator in these issues. You won't find statements at FDA.gov, but you will at ama-assn.org/

In fact, many Government websites will remind you of the fact that they are not copyrighted, such as here:

http://www.fda.gov/copyright.html

[Steelsun]

Aspen is spot on (good job on that analysis)

[Bleys]

Yes, as far as I have heard the government cannot hold copyrights. So anything they produce would be public domain.

All those great NASA photos. Must find a use for them

I wonder, though, does that mean you can profit from them? I mean, can I legally take a NASA photo and sell a poster of it?

[Genjamin]

what about using pics from a government site such as nasa.gov? would that be legal?

[aspen]

Pics are the same as content. You can use it if its public domain, and if the government produced it it is public domain.