It can't be this easy/legal?

[basesloaded]

I'm just starting out, so please excuse my noobishness. I want to make a few mini sites to test out web site builders, see how google tools work, etc. While looking for content sources, I learned that all government works are copyright free. Does this mean that one can literally copy paste a manual or break up a really long document into a couple web pages and call it a website? (this is obviously an extreme example and probably wouldn't make money. I'm just curious if it's this easy/legal.

[decipher]

I'm sure its legal as long as you link the reference to it, however I would not recommend building websites based off of duplicate content as it will surely have an effect on your SERP's. If you wanna go that route I would suggest re-writing the article(s) or spin them prior to posting the content.

[tsdev]

Definetely do not just copy it as google will see it as duplicate content. If you can rewrite the content in your own style and possible put references then that would do just fine.

[Lightbeam7]

Rewriting is advisable. If you don't want to do that, you can offer them as downloads to avoid duplication penalties.