WELDING LINKS: DARK SIDE OF THE INTERNET
by Myra Vanderpool Gormley, CG <rwr-editors(a)rootsweb.com>
Disguised as the nicest people on earth, many genealogists are nevertheless
thieves, plagiarists, and copyright infringers. Some are high-tech robbers
using computers, mice, and Internet Service Providers to steal intellectual
property. Some try to hide their crimes under mantles of excuses such as:
o I thought everything on the Internet was FREE.
o I'm just looking up information for FREE. I don't charge people anything.
o You can't copyright facts and that's what genealogy is.
o Genealogy was meant to be shared.
o This is information about my family and I'm entitled to it.
o Reproduction of copyrighted materials was intended to keep people from
distributing information for profit.
o Authors are too greedy and should be grateful they are getting free
advertising on the Web.
No matter how easy it is to copy from the Web, a book, or a CD, taking
another's work is wrong. Access to a great deal of genealogical material may
be
free, but that does not give you a right to copy and use someone's
intellectual
property -- without his or her permission. If you offer to do lookups for
others (whether you charge or not) in books or CDs that you own, you may be
guilty of copyright infringement. Obtain the author's permission first -- you
might be surprised at how gracious most authors are. Broderbund, one of the
largest producers of genealogical CDs, clearly notes in all of its CD booklets
that it considers the following wholesale sharing a copyright violation:
o Systematically making a CD freely available to more than one person at a
time.
o Systematically make large parts of a CD's contents freely available to
others.
o Uploading all or part of a CD's contents onto an electronic bulletin board.
o Circulating a printout taken straight off the CD.
The USGenWeb Project offers four "golden rules of copyright" at
<
http://www.usgenweb.org/volunteers/copyright.html>:
o Materials older than 1923 are absolutely safe. (They are in the public
domain.)
o Relaying FACTS is OK. (This does not mean copying.)
o If the use of material created by someone else diminishes the market value
of
that person's work, then the copyright has been violated.
o Getting written (not e-mail) permission from the author/publisher is the
surest way to ensure that you are not violating copyright law.
So what is copyrightable? Some like to argue that genealogy is just facts, and
facts can not be copyrighted or that the information came from public records
and therefore can not be copyrighted. It is true that original public records
in the U.S. cannot be copyrighted, but a compilation of them can be. The law
recognizes the right of transcribers and compilers to be compensated and have
their work protected. If you don't think this is work, transcribe some
17th-century Virginia court
records or decipher some 19th-century ship passenger lists. Accumulated
genealogical information, to the extent that it is an expression, can be
protected by copyright, but the actual facts in the information cannot be
protected.
If authors quit compiling records and writing books because of copyright
infringements, what will happen to genealogy? It is true that the basic facts
about your ancestors -- name, birth date and place, spouse, date and place of
the marriage, death date and place, are not copyrightable.
However, adding any kind of narration to the basic genealogical facts gives
rise to a copyright in the creative portion of the work. See Gary B. Hoffman's
article "Who Owns Genealogy? Cousins and Copyrights"
<
http://www.genealogy.com/14_cpyrt.html>.
Does living far from genealogical repositories, having a physical limitation,
being a certain age, or being in reduced circumstances entitle us to any
special privileges of copying or using someone's
material? Is it ever right to take anything that belongs to someone else?
Would
your ancestors be proud of your answers and your actions?
For more information about copyright issues see:
10 Big Myths About Copyright Explained by Brad Templeton.
<
http://www.templetons.com/brad//copymyths.html>
The United States Copyright Office
<
http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/>
PERMISSION TO REPRINT articles from ROOTSWEB REVIEW is granted unless
specifically stated otherwise, PROVIDED: (1) the reprint is used for
non-commercial, educational purposes; and (2) the following notice appears at
the end of the article:
Written by <author's name, e-mail address, and URL, if given>
Previously published by
RootsWeb.com, Inc., RootsWeb Review:
RootsWeb's Genealogy News, Vol. 2, No. 38, 22 September 1999.
RootsWeb: <
http://www.rootsweb.com/>