Can I republish the U.S. Code on my website?

Question

Can I republish the U.S. Code on my website?

Answer 1

Just keep in mind that many of the places where you can get a copy of the US code require you to agree not to copy information received from them in order to get access, so if you're talking about downloading the code from lexisnexis or westlaw, the law is not entirely clear on the matter, but you may face a civil suit if you try to copy that in large quantities onto your site. However, if you are getting the text from an open source, then yes you can. Materials published by the congress are open source. The text itself is not subject to being copyrighted. West keynotes are proprietary, though, you must have permission from thomson routers to publish them.

Note that not all states have this open policy. Some actually hold copyrights over their materials, though usually not their statutes.

Alexjoss, why couldn't you charge people to view it? Lexisnexis and westlaw do. I'm not a lawyer yet, so I can't legally say for sure, and you should confirm anything here with a lawyer before taking any legal action. This should not be treated as legal advice.

Answer 2

The federal government has no copyrights. Yes you can.  

Answer 3

Absolutely, as long as you are not charging people to view it.  It would be good if you properly cited whatever sections you are quoting.