[or-roots] Find a Grave - Copyright violations

[Kith-n-Kin]

I hate to push the copyright button here, because I think the bigger issue
to most of us is attribution (citing our sources), assuming that we are not
wholesale "reissuing" a compiled work.

 

The copyright protection for "compiled works" is, as your reference to Brad
Templeton notes, "complex." I've put in "bold" the pertinent parts.


"Creative Work


The first big issue involves defining what it is to make a creative work.
The law requires that it exist in some tangible form -- it can't just be in
your head or sailing through the ether, it has to be on disk, paper, carved
in stone (sculpture) or the like. It has to be creative (that's a tough one
for lawyers to define) and that means it can't just be factual data. But
most things you write in English (or C++) are going to be creative works,
plus anything you photograph or sculpt or draw or record. (What you say
isn't copyrighted until it's put onto tape -- it has to be in tangible
form.) Anything you write and post to USENET is almost certainly a creative,
copyrightable work. Anything you post-process with a computer (like object
code) is a derivative work, still copyrighted. 

You can also do creative editing or collecting work. So that while facts
can't be copyrighted, clever, creative organization of the facts can be.
This is called a compilation copyright and it's somewhat complex. 

There are some specific exceptions in some countries. Fonts as printed on
paper can't be copyrighted for historical reasons. Nothing done by the U.S.
government can be copyrighted inside the USA. 

And of course you can't copyright something somebody else did without their
permission, or derive your work from their work."

 http://www.templetons.com/brad/copyright.html  

So, let's take two examples. 

 

A Tombstone. You copy the information, put it together with some other
information, say a census of the cemetery, and publish it. The format you
used is copyrightable, but the essential information of the data
(information) on the tombstone, is not.

 

I go to the cemetery, take a picture of the tombstone, and publish the
picture with a caption that lists the information on the tombstone. The
photo is protected by copyright, the information in the caption is not.

 

Example two.

 

You find obituaries in various newspapers about people and copy them out to
another format. IF the newspaper published is old enough to have lost its
copyright, you are ok. If the newspaper edition is still under copyright,
you may be ok, under fair use, but may not be if you re-publish as a "new
work" and sell it. Lots of Ifs, ands, and maybes here.

 

If I find the same obituaries, in a different way - say I look them up in
GenealogyBank.com, instead of the paper copies or films you used, the same
rules apply, or not. Even if I cite the source back to the original
newspaper, and it "looks" just like yours, it is a "new" issue.

 

If I find your set, and copy them (outside of I'm really not being a good
researcher), whose copyright am I messing with? Yours? Or the original
source?

 

We had an incident on this list awhile back, where the current owner of a
newspaper (or magazine, I don't remember) wanted to claim copyright to
material that had been published by the company back in the early 1900s or
earlier. They intimidated one of our members by claiming that they would sue
or something like that.  I think they were wrong, but since I'm not the one
who would wind up in court, it isn't my fight.

 

There are some sites that are claiming copyright to something that, in its
original form, is out of copyright, just because they have put it up on the
internet. I know this may be yet to be decided, but if you read copyright
law, I think you'll find out that re-issue does not produce new copyright.  

 

I used to have people who worked for and with me who thought that, because
we were a state agency, that we could make photocopies of cartoons,
chapters, workbooks, to use in classes because it was "fair use" and we
"weren't trying to make a profit."  It took a long time to convince them
that they were doing something illegal.

 

I am a little concerned about the "Find-a-Grave" website now. They already
have a notice up that you cannot put up photos you don't hold copyright to,
now, I would guess that they will put up some notice about the copyright to
the tombstone data and/or accompanying obituaries or biographies. I would
hope that's all they do. It cannot be up to them to police the contributions
of thousands of people, and take off anything they find troublesome.

 

But, all of us/you who have such on the site, you might want to go to your
"people" and make sure there is nothing there that is going to be dumped.
Because the only real difference between one person posting an obituary or
biography, and one person posting hundreds of obituaries/biographies, is
scale.

 

I think it's more important here that we, as genealogists, recognize each
other's contributions, and cite our sources, than that we get into arguments
about what is or is not copyrightable.  In the case here, the person could
have merely put a link to Stephanie's website (and it would have been
quicker). The downside to that, as we know, is that URLs come and go -
evidence the Linn County site that had the "Arrived in Oregon" information.
The basic answer here is that the compiler of the tombstones, matching them
with the obituaries/biographies, woulda, coulda, shoulda, communicated with
Stephanie first. My guess is that they could have come to an agreement.

 

So, how about more "asking permission" and less "asking forgiveness."

 

Pat

In Tucson 

 

 

>>>>This is more than a matter of simply citing sources or giving credit or
recognition to the author.  This is more than simple plagarism or fair use.
I have no doubt that a court would find this a copyright violation if it
were ever taken that far.  Here is a link to a website that discusses
copyright in easy to understand terms:

http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html

Carla




 

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