Copyright


PUBLIC RECORD

Genealogy sites are typically a compilation of other works, many of which are public record and therefore do not fall under copyright laws. Most vital records are public record, such as birth dates, death dates, marriages, and divorces. Property records are also public record.

Obituaries are not considered public information. Typically the newspaper, funeral home, or family of the deceased is the owner of the writing in the obituary. For any obituary written after 1922 rewrite the obituary so it is in your own words, unless you have specific permission to add it to your site word for word.

You should maintain people's privacy. Do not knowingly publish information on living people. Replace names in recent obits with 4 sons and 3 daughters rather than John, James, Jason, Jacob, Jessie, Janet, Joan, & Jill.

CONTRIBUTED DATA

Some of the information on your genealogy website was contributed to the you by researchers for use on the website. Typically the data contributed by researchers remain the copyright of the researcher, unless you otherwise specify. It may be a good idea to explain this to the submitter at the time of submission. The compilation of the data that is found on the website is protected by the US Copyright Law, Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998. See: http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/. You should put a copyright notice on the bottom of all of your pages, even though it is not required.

PRIVATE USE

Typically you will allow individual genealogists to copy and use the information found on your website for personal use "ONLY". They should not expect to copy or alter in any way for commercial use or resale nor for use on another webpage without written permission of the yourself or the submitter of the contributed data.

Where information has been provided by someone other than yourself, written permission should be obtained by the submitter of the information.

COPYRIGHT

Some is taken from works whose copyright has expired. http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ22.html#how
In investigating the copyright status of works first published before January 1, 1978, the most important thing to look for is the notice of copyright. As a general rule under the previous law, copyright protection was lost permanently if the notice was omitted from the first authorized published edition of a work or if it appeared in the wrong form or position. The form and position of the copyright notice for various types of works were specified in the copyright statute. Some courts were liberal in overlooking relatively minor departures from the statutory requirements, but a basic failure to comply with the notice provisions forfeited copyright protection and put the work into the public domain in this country.

Absence of Copyright Notice
For works first published before 1978, the complete absence of a copyright notice from a published copy generally indicates that the work is not protected by copyright. For works first published before March 1, 1989, the copyright notice is mandatory, but omission could have been cured by registration before or within 5 years of publication and by adding the notice to copies published in the United States after discovery of the omission. Some works may contain a notice, others may not. The absence of a notice in works published on or after March 1, 1989, does not necessarily indicate that the work is in the public domain.

Works Published and Copyrighted before January 1, 1978 A work published before January 1, 1978, and copyrighted within the past 75 years may still be protected by copyright in the United States if a valid renewal registration was made during the 28th year of the first term of the copyright. If renewed by registration or under the Copyright Renewal Act of 1992 and if still valid under the other provisions of the law, the copyright will expire 95 years from the end of the year in which it was first secured.

Therefore, the U. S. copyright in any work published or copyrighted prior to January 1, 1923, has expired by operation of law, and the work has permanently fallen into the public domain in the United States. For example, on January 1, 1997, copyrights in works first published or copyrighted before January 1, 1922, have expired; on January 1, 1998, copyrights in works first published or copyrighted before January 1, 1923, have expired. Unless the copyright law is changed again, no works under protection on January 1, 1999 will fall into the public domain in the United States until January 1, 2019.