Copyright and an ethics question

[Timothy Stowell]

Since members have been asked, for a long time, to copyright their sites and/or individual transcriptions within a site I wanted to ask a question about such.

Using myself as one who has copyrighted listings of cemeteries, transcribed public domain books and other items on a website, what rights go beyond one's mortal demise?

I know that when a website host leaves the Project, that often the next person may give a blanket thanks to departed person for their work at maintaining the site or not.

Unless I as a website maintainer have written some publication that I copyright like a book, booklet, etc, that at my departure from maintaining such site goes away with me and certainly if I die, because no one in my heirs gives a hoot about what I do.

So case in point outside myself.  I have used in my sites info donated by xyz person over the years and have posted on the page donated by abc person and included an email address if provided for contact.  Also after knowing said person had died I would remove the email address with a note that the person who donated it had passed away.  I've done the same for former now deceased CCs, who I would gather would if they could communicate would want their work preserved and passed along.

However I've run across data from folks I know have died that to my knowledge did not donate  material to my specific area of hosting. If credit is given that "Bob" copyrighted said information and I'm only modifying code surrounding the actual data for presentation purposes (like removing references to long dead emails, hosting services) is that legal and/or ethical?

Tim Stowell

ASC NYGenWeb

SC MNGenWeb

[Pat Asher]

Tim,

1) Data (aka facts) can NOT be copyrighted. 

2) The way in which data is selected and/or arranged MAY be copyrighted if the selection/arrangement itself is original i.e. something other than a standard arrangement such as an alphabetical list, one arranged by date, etc.

3) If copyright in a work does exist, upon the author's death, ownership of the  copyright passes to the author's heirs per law.

4) Whether or not copyright exists in a given work, acknowledging the original author is the courteous and ethical thing to do. If a work "is" copyrighted, you must have the author's permission to republish except under the rules of "fair use" which can be complicated.

Pat Asher

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[haloupek]

Thanks to Tim Stowell, for a thoughtful and important post.

I must admit that I don't understand the copyright laws. Many of our 

state and county sites have copyright notices. It might be nice if every 

site had a statement about who owns what, but I don't know how to do that.

Many credits are given to people, and I don't know if they are deceased, 

or if that changes the attribution. 

I would like to give credit where credit is due, to the living or deceased. 

Many county sites have stern warnings, and links to a USGenWeb page 

that no longer exists. Please advise.

Bill Haloupek

ASC for MIGenWeb

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[Shone Brooks]

The current USGenWeb® Copyright Guidelines can be found here:

https://www.usgenweb.org/volunteers/copyright.html

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/state-coord/CAC2dJes3V1wa%2B3KfhWseaoVN54sDn3m5iph8rMajA-PF5PjUzg%40mail.gmail.com.

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Shone Brooks, MIGenWeb County Coordinator for Iosco, Jackson, and Washtenaw

[Randy C]

Yes, this is very interesting, I find great "data" on the wayback machine that I feel should be available to genealogy researchers via a google search and want to republish it but I mostly worry that someone at USGenWeb will think I have erred.

And your statement Pat, " if the selection/arrangement itself is original i.e. something other than a standard arrangement such as an alphabetical list, one arranged by date, etc." leads me to think 99% of what I am looking at would be fine to move to my counties.

With of course a credit line about where if came from.

Should I make myself 100% sure that the author is deceased or that I can't find a way to to contact them without paying for a private investigator?

Randy

[Kris Meyer]

My material is copywrited to IAGenWeb, not to me personally

Kris

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[Bill Walsh]

My personal opinion is that instead of copyright we should use Creative
Commons.

https://creativecommons.org/

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si vis pacem, para bellum

Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus

[Pat Asher]

Randy, *IF* the original author does have a valid copyright, the fact that he, she, they, may be deceased does not terminate their copyright. If a copyright is valid, it passes to their heirs at law whether by will or by the state laws of inheritance.

Example: I have a small cemetery transcription on one of my USGW websites. The contributor transcribed the tombstones, i.e. name, dob and dod, but -- she also added comments such as wife of, he was a R.R. engineer, they moved to XX county in XXXX. Now, while those are also "facts," she chose what facts to add to who making her  selection and arrangement original and copyrightable. All of the "facts" are public domain, but her particular selection and "arrangement" of those of facts is copyrightable.

There are also differences between Federal and State copyright laws regarding records they have created.

IOW, there is nothing simple about copyright law so when in doubt, contact the publisher.

Pat Asher

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