Rule 1003 Admissibility of Duplicates

You can use a copy of a document in court almost as easily as the original. Photocopies, printouts, and similar duplicates count just as much as the real thing in most situations.

There are two exceptions to this. First, if someone has a real reason to doubt that the original document is genuine, the copy might not be good enough. Second, if using a copy instead of the original would be unfair to one side for some reason, the court can require the original instead.

In everyday terms, this rule saves people from having to track down original paperwork for every court case. As long as no one is seriously questioning whether the original was real or whether using a copy causes a real problem, a copy will work just fine.