After reading all these comments, let me put in my two cents. It seems
there is no hard and fast rule. I have seen obituaries that are prepared
by the deceased family published verbatim in the paper, obituaries
prepared by the Funeral Home published verbatim in the paper and
information just submitted to the newspaper which then prepares the
obituary. In each case the copyright for the written format should
belong to the person or organization that prepared the final copy.
The newspaper has a right to protect the way the information is
disseminated, that is the way it is formatted in the paper or on their
internet website. That does not include the actual obituary, unless they
wrote it themselves, just the way it is presented. The basis is to
protect their company from someone else "profiting" from the way they
present information. Some will argue but the copyright laws side to
whoever is losing profit from the copying of information. If you present
the whole page of the newspaper or even part of it you are possibly
injuring them because the only way someone would have seen that in the
first place was to have a subscription. These days that is a little gray
as the websites present it for free but they also include ads on the
same page that create revenue for them and if a person does not go to
their site to view the obituary, then they are prevented from receiving
that ad revenue and thus the copyright law is broken.
If the content is prepared by the Funeral Home or individual the actual
obituary is not the property of the newspaper so if you do not present
it like the newspaper (don't photograph it and present it in that
fashion) then a transcription should not break any copyright laws, as
far as the newspaper is concerned. It now falls on you to check to see
if the copyright belongs to the Funeral Home or the individual's family.
If you summarize the information in the obituary there is no copyright
law being broken as no one owns a right to dates, names and locations.
For a transcription there is always a chance no matter how slight that
someone will choose to challenge your use of the obit. I've never
actually heard of any genealogist ever being prosecuted for it but there
is a moral obligation that is usually followed to remove any obituary
that is challenged even if there is no copyright law being broken.
An example presented itself a few months ago. I had been posting links
on my county mailing list to the Zanesville Times Recorder daily
obituary listings, which by the way has no possibility of copyright
infringement. I handed over the reigns to someone who took it upon
themselves to also include the obit itself. She had gotten an email from
the widow of someone whose obit appeared and demanded it be removed and
how dare she publish it without her consent and subject her to the
possibility of thieves and possible rapists coming to her house because
she is now alone. Chances are there was no actual copyright infringement
unless it was with the newspaper, and the fact that the lady threatened
to sue her and said she had already contacted her lawyers was probably
an idle threat as I don't think any lawyer would have given that type of
advice. The right thing to do was remove the obituary from the archives.
When you choose to publish current obituaries, this is the chance you
take. Who knows how this woman found the obituary that was posted on the
list as she was not subscribed. Who knows if she also did not send the
same threat to the newspaper so they removed all traces of it as well.
She was certainly distraught over the death of her husband and felt
vulnerable being now in the world alone. Did she ever thank us for
removing the offending obituary, no way. Actually, the person who posted
the obit did get a response and it was to berate her even more for
putting her through that. Sometimes you just can't win, so why try?
Because in 99.999% of the obituaries that are posted, someone got some
useful information and no one was actually litigated.
I would like to see if there is any recorded cases of anyone actually
being removed from being a county coordinator for publishing one
obituary that was contested. Usually even the governing body would give
a person a chance to remove any offending information and if they
continue or do not remove it then that is a different story. My
suggestion would be to continue and if asked to stop, then stop and
remove any contested information. The pros outweigh the cons.
Sara asked about how to get permission for posting obits if the
newspaper is no longer in business or has been merged. Well, don't post
the image and don't worry about it as I doubt there is anyone that is
ever going to notice. Newspapers don't go looking for litigation as they
can't afford to pay someone to look for every instance of a copyright
being broken unless it is brought to their attention. If the paper no
longer exists, who's attention is it going to be brought to?
Information can be removed from a website. Don't publish recent obits in
hard copy form as then you are just asking for trouble unless it passes
the test of being in the public domain. The information that gets
archived in someone else's site is not your problem. If you remove the
source of any contested material from your own site then you have done
your part. Don't let it stop you from publishing the data and helping
others, there is always going to be someone who doesn't agree and you
just have to be prepared for that, just don't ignore it.
Denny Shirer - drdx(a)neo.rr.com - Canton, OH
Shirer Family Genealogy -
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mysong
Muskingum County, OHGenWeb -
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ohmuskin/
Dale Grimm wrote:
With advertising revenues dwindling, many larger newspapers are
attempting
to pick up the slack by raising prices on obituaries. I am constantly
hearing complaints from funeral directors about the prices of obituaries in
the larger newspapers. (In large newspapers, you won't get much of an obit
for $200.)
If that trend continues, newspaper obituaries could become a thing of the
past. Many are already are cutting down on the length of their loved ones'
obituaries.
I have not been able to find any applicable precedents, so common sense
would prevail for the time being.
My suggestion - use it and see if anyone complains. It's always easier to
get forgiveness than permission.
Dale
-----Original Message-----
From: ohgen-bounces(a)rootsweb.com [mailto:ohgen-bounces@rootsweb.com] On
Behalf Of Holly Timm
Sent: Sunday, January 17, 2010 11:41 AM
To: ohgen(a)rootsweb.com
Subject: Re: [OHGENWEB] regarding posting obituaries
If the family wishes, that has always been possible, but the base obituary
charge is generally as I described and is not as expensive.
-----Original Message-----
From: ohgen-bounces(a)rootsweb.com [mailto:ohgen-bounces@rootsweb.com] On
Behalf Of Sandra Quinn
Sent: Sunday, January 17, 2010 10:55 AM
To: ohgen(a)rootsweb.com
Subject: Re: [OHGENWEB] regarding posting obituaries
Holly, I am not sure that is the case today here in Ohio. Most funeral
homes do publish the family members written obituary at a cost of 200
dollars base fee charged by the newspaper. I wrote my grandmothers who died
in July of this year for her funeral home who published at that rate charged
by the local paper.
Sandy
Holly Timm wrote:
> Mark,
>
> As someone who once had the job of obituary writer at a newspaper,
> along with other writing tasks, generally the funeral home provides
> information obtained by them from the family of the deceased. The
> newspaper then
writes
> the obituary using the information but usually neither the funeral
> home
nor
> the family actually writes the obituary.
>
> Holly
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ohgen-bounces(a)rootsweb.com [mailto:ohgen-bounces@rootsweb.com]
> On Behalf Of Mark Lozer
> Sent: Saturday, January 16, 2010 12:05 PM
> To: ohgen(a)rootsweb.com
> Subject: [OHGENWEB] regarding posting obituaries
>
> Hi Maggie,
>
> Question, how does an obituary become the literary property of a
> newspaper? Obituaires are written and prepared by the family of the
> deceased as part of the funeral home package for which they are charged.
> The funeral home takes care of submitting the prepared obituary to all
> the newspaper the family request it to appear in and they are charged
> for each according to the rates of the various newpapers. I
> understand that if
your
> source of the obituary is a specific newspaper that they should be
> given credit but do not understand why there should be an issue of the
> newspaper having to give permission to post a copy. These days many
> funeral homes also have websights and post obituaries there as well.
> Funeral homes also make up bookmarks and other items which they print
> the obituaries on It seems to me that with so many places obituaries
> are found these days that
it
> would be hard for anyone entity to take any legal action for posting
> an obituary transcription. I would think if permission is needed,
> that it should come from the surviving family member(s) that prepared
> the
obituary
> since they are the ones that composed and paid for its publishing,
> Many people write their own obituaries and I suppose in that case
> control of
it's
> use would pass to the survivor as well. Now if your are talking about
> posting an actual scan of a specifc newspaper, I could understand that
there
> may be a requirement to get permission from the newspaper to do that.
> Then also there may have been a time period in the past from the
> 1930's
to
> present where an obituary was actually written by someone on the
> newspaper staff, but in todays world this is rarely the case with the
> exception of a special feature the you see where a newspaper publishes
> it's own special obituary of an prominent individual.
>
> Just some thoughts. I no legal expert but it just seems to me that we
> are giving newspapers to much control here. I get many requests
> directly from family members of the deseased to post obituaries and I
> think they should have every right to grant permission to do so
> without being concerned with whether it is ok with a newspaper or in
> many cases the several newspapers that carried the obituary.
>
>
>
> Mark Lozer
> 817 N. Fulton St.
> Wauseon, OH 43567
> lozer(a)fulton-net.com
>
>
> Fulton County Ohio GenWeb Page Coordinator
>
http://www.rootsweb.com/~ohfulton/
>
>
>
>
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