This is an urban legend. Ask a lawyer.
Is the “Notarius Publicus” office an urban legend too? 
Jofa is correct as always 
When I first started out on the Web (back in the day, 1997), I found a website whose layout and design I admired. Having just purchased FrontPage (I have since upgraded to Dreamweaver, thank God), I copied the site’s main page code, opened it in FP, and studied how everything was arranged - tables, borders, content, fonts, etc.
I was teaching myself to write HTML at the time and studying this site’s code and layout helped me to better understand how it was all done.
When I created my frist site I followed along with how they had arranged tables, cells, etc. The only problem here was that, even though all the graphics were made by me, my site ended up with a “look” like theirs - simply because I had not changed any arrangement of the tables, etc.
The site whose code I had admired started a flaming thread about me and my site in thier forums, saying I had “ripped” their design. I went into the forums, apologized, and then explained what I had done. I also started working on a totally new “layout” - one that was just my own.
This taught me two very important things:
1.) Be original … even right down to the arrangement and placing of code. Because even HTML and CSS can be used in an artful manner, if one tries hard enough.
2.) Be honest … by visiting their forum and explaining what happened (to the people of the forum as well as the site’s webmaster) I was accepted and have been part of their community for some time now.
Lastly, as a designer, I want to stress how important it is to come up with your own work. I know it can be tedious at times, but in the end the satisfaction of knowing you’ve created your own, unique design makes it all worth it.
Thanks to you both for clearing it up for me. 
Will be careful to make sure I get permission and quote sources in the future. Not that I’m not careful, it was never clear for me and I just figured better safe than sorry.
I would contact a lawyer and have him write a cease and desist letter and send it to him and his isp. I am sure that it won’t be free to do but will usually get action.