united-states copyright intellectual-property
Legality of using a business&#39;s information
<p>Is it strictly legal to post a business's information on your website?</p>

<p>If the answer to the above is yes, then I guess I don't really have another question; however, if it is no, on what circumstances does it depend?</p>

<p>I've seen this post: <a href="https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/183/is-it-possible-to-legally-prohibit-someone-from-linking-to-specific-pages-on-you">Is it possible to legally prohibit someone from linking to specific pages on your website?</a>
and the answer states: "use of <em>information</em> is not infringing".</p>

<p>But, I'm still not sure from that single line that my use case would be fine.</p>

<p>The use case for me would be posting a business's specials on my website: this could range from free entry to a paintball park to happy hour at a bar.  Does it matter how I get this information? What If I copy pasted their specials from their website? Must I paraphrase their information? Does it matter if I didn't post this information and other people were allowed to post it?</p>

<p>This is really almost free advertising for these restaurants/bars/businesses and I don't expect to have a problem, but I want to make sure that it isn't illegal.</p>

<p>It depends on what information you are sharing, how you got it, and what rights the business asserts over the information.</p>

<p>For example, if it is content created by the business and they claim copyright protection you can only use it without their permission in accordance with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use" rel="nofollow">Fair use</a> exceptions.</p>

<p>If you obtain the information through some limited/conditional access agreement you would be subject to the terms of that agreement.</p>

<p><strong>As always:</strong> If you want a legal opinion specific to your use case you need to consult a lawyer in your jurisdiction.</p>

<p>A business (nor an individual) can not copyright that "we have a happy hour weekdays from 5:00pm to 7:00pm.</p>

<p>If the information was publicly announced (i.e. via a sandwich board in the street outside their door, or in a newspaper ad) then it is "news" and is not protected by copyright.</p>
