Oh for goodness sake. I am not a lawyer but this US COde is under title 19
and is accessible for research as follows. I get tired of the some people
trying to strike fear in everyone's hearts. I was once told that I couldn't
put my own genealogy research on line as part of it was someone elses family
and they put it on line first. Malarky. If you research public records you
can publish your research, even if someone else has accomplished the same
research, (just publish your sources).
Please see the following web site that has the legal copywrite ruling.
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/index.html
First and foremost copywrites can be considered invalid after 70 years from
the persons death. Thus any work that is over the age of 170 years you can
be sure of no copywrite infringement. (Probably less as most people die
before the age of 100 and don't even write the work till they are at least
the age of 30, thus a more practical date would be about 100 years). Most
people consider anything over 100 years old out of the copywrited realm. So
your first question should be how old is the darn book. If it was published
after 1833 you might be concerned about infringement. Anything before 1833
is definately public domain. Most information published before 1903 is
considered public domain. But there is more to the process.
Second what is considered copywritten.
Copywrite is given to "Origninal works" and to Original work that includes
compilation of other works but only to the original portions of the work.
In this case I would suggest that the compilation area applies. See the
verbatium text from the title below. One can only copywrite your original
work! not the compilation itsself.
"The copyright in a compilation or derivative work extends only to the
material contributed by the author of such work, as distinguished from the
preexisting material employed in the work, and does not imply any exclusive
right in the preexisting material. The copyright in such work is independent
of, and does not affect or enlarge the scope, duration, ownership, or
subsistence of, any copyright protection in the preexisting material"
Therefore the public domain information like the information from deeds,
birth certificates and anything else obtainable through the public systems
would not be copywritable. Anyone can get a copy of a will, or estate
settlement by contacting the state. Most states have laws making
duplication of the exact paper unlawful but transcription permissible. If
the author transcribed public domain documents then you could just as easily
transcribe the same documents. Thus having the same info on a web site is
not copy write infringement. However, if you transcribe his book verbatim,
I would think that those portions of the book of "original work" could fall
under the copywrite infringement law. A good way to determine the copywrite
value of the information is to check his sources for the book. If the
sources state a public document it cannot be copywritten.
Okay one for the author. If he put all the work into transcribing the
information, I think he deserves the right to sell the information, but it
doesn't necessarily make every word in the book fall under the copywrite
protection. You are free to publish your own genealogy even if grandma
published a copy before you. So long as all your sources are public domains
or you have been given copywrite approval from the owner of the copywrite
(not always the author but usually).
So blah blah blah. I am not a lawyer but I would say that you are free to
publish any information that is public domain from public records. However
if you are taking it directly from a book whose author is alive or hasn't
passed over more than 70 years ago, well it is better not to publish without
permission. Better safe than sorry. This does not preclude you from
looking up names of people and sharing information from those sources. Of
course you would give credit to the author of the book you are discussing.
I just wouldn't publish anything on line unless you stick with that
information that is specifically publically accessable ie public domain.
I don't know if this helps, and again I am not a laywer so don't shoot me.
I would suggest you look at the law yourself.