Plain-text is a better source for cut-and-paste operations.In general plain text divides the actual license text from any attached commentary, making it clear which is which.
There is no universally-accepted standard for indicating the character set of plain text in the data, rather than in an external indication such as the HTTP Content-Type header. There is an assumption, sometimes wrong, that plain-text is ASCII. ASCII isn't capable of representing non-Latin character sets. Web servers often misrepresent the character set of plain text, since the content-type indication is set in an external file rather than the content itself.
HTML provides some desirable features:Web page producers are more conscious of the need to represent the page character set accurately. It is possible for a web site to enforce that all pages be UTF-8, and for most national characters to be represented accurately.
However, not all sites are this well-disciplined, and there are regional issues such as the Han unification in UTF-8 that can cause an undesirable rendering of a character for languages like Japanese. In logogramic languages, getting a character wrong in a legal document is much more likely to cause an unintended change of meaning. This is not to say that plain text could render these characters at all.
HTML provides internal anchors which can be referenced by external documents, providing a way to link to a particular paragraph (or finer, if provided) from an email or article.
HTML provides a wealth of methods for rendering commentary internal to the document. It can be called out by changes in font, color, or position. It can be hidden and revealed using javascript, CSS, or document structure, and selected by hover-over or click.
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