...especially of a web-published document?

If you carefully read the "boilerplate" in most datasheets and other spec's, they seldom are very specific about what you mustn't do unless it infringes on their economic rights, not their intellectual ones.

The lawyers won't waste time if they can't make money, and the courts won't do it either if there isn't some form of monetary damage. If you publish a part of someone's copyrighted work that's available for sale, with a few exceptions, that might and probably will constitute economic damage. If you publish something that someone else has declared as being valueless by virtue of giving an infinite amount of it away to anyone willing to download it, I doubt any court will take that on. They declared it as without monetary value by making it available to anyone and everyone on the www. We all know, that stuff never goes away completely. I'm sure it's a different matter if you publish something acquired under NDA or under seal of confidentiality. Do that and you'll get what you deserve. If it was once freely disseminated, and later withdrawn without protocol, I don't think you'll convince any court there's been economic harm or any infringement. After all, whoever has it came by it legally and in coherence with the original publisher's wishes. The original publisher intended it to be used as it is being used. ... No harm, no foul ...

RE