I find this subject terribly confusing and as evidenced by the discussions of late on
USGenWeb Discuss, I certainly am not alone. From our bylaws and guidelines it is very
clear to me that as a coordinator I must comply with copyright laws/rules, as confusing as
they are and as argumentative they’ve been within the project. However, I cannot find
anywhere in our bylaws/rules that states I have to ‘post’ a copyright statement on my
website. If that were true, I would think USGenWeb or the State would have a required
‘statement’ that would be consistent across the project. As it is, when a statement is
posted on a website it’s a statement that reflects the interpretation of the coordinator.
If I am missing this requirement for posting, I would certainly like to be directed to it.
I think Karen’s note is an excellent note and the best description I’ve seen as a
guideline. I just don’t find where a posting is a requirement.
Sincerely,
Mike
From: Karen De Groote via
Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2015 6:09 PM
To: List MNGenWeb
Subject: [MNGEN] USGenWeb Requirement #3-Copyright
As promised, the separate message on copyright.
3. You are required to adhere to the USGenWeb copyright policy. IF
your index page contains a copyright statement it must be a current
copyright so if the year is 2015, your INDEX page needs to say 2015.
A copyright is as simple as, ie: " © Karen De Groote and Individual
submitters, 2015" The USGenWeb Bylaws, section X, deals with
copyright of our pages and you should be familiar with this section.
http://www.usgenweb.org/volunteers/bylaws.shtml.
If you want to read more about copyright you can visit this page:
http://www.usgenweb.org/volunteers/copyright.shtml.
Your other pages do not need to carry a current copyright. If you
made them and posted copyright at the time they were made, you can
leave them be. Current copyright on the index page provides coverage
for all of your pages.
It would be far better to remove a copyright statement rather than
leave an out of date one on your index page. You want visitors to
know you are there and current.
If you want to use a good copyright, you are all welcome to use the
one I use on my counties and edit it for your own counties. Having a
copyright on your page makes protection of your work so much easier.
Many major servers respect copyrights and if someone takes your web
pages and posts them as theirs on a server, that server will shut them
down immediately. I know this happened with GoDaddy recently and have
heard other big companies will respect a posted copyright.
My copyright is worded as this, in small font, at the bottom of my
index page. You may use it on your page as long as you change the
county name:
Copyright © MNGenWeb 2015
MNGenWeb Stearns County: In keeping with our policy of providing free
information on the internet, data may be used by non-commercial
researchers, as long as this message remains on all copied material.
These electronic pages may not be reproduced in any format for profit,
nor for presentation in any form by any other organization or
individual. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for
purposes other than as stated above, must obtain express written
permission from the author, or the submitter and from the listed
county coordinator.
Thanks again, one and all!
Karen
ASC
Shirley
SC
Tim
SC
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