Copyright Links

By and Large Genealogists are the most honest and well-intentioned people around. They are caring and eager to share their hard work with others. I believe that none of us would intentionally "steal" work from anyone, but through lack of knowledge (I'm sure) a lot of "hard work" is being copied and placed on personal web pages, passed along on e-mail lists and printed in Genealogy Newsletters, all without the consent of the author.

Become Knowledgeable about what is Copyrighted and what is not. Please spend some time at the links listed below.

It will help you if you will browse all the way to the end of the page to see what's here before you start clicking away <g>

If you find any broken links please let me know (copy the broken item and past it in an e-mail - please remember to give me the page heading above so I can find it on this page to fix.). Thanks

Linda Haas Davenport

It works best to open these links in a new window. That way you can get back here easily.

IGGS APRIL 99 NEWSLETTER - COPYRIGHTS & ETHICS A growing problem with genealogy and the internet is the idea that anything found on the net is "free", "public domain" and "true". The IIGS has published an excellent newsletter about this problem. Take a couple of minutes and read what they have to say. http://www.iigs.org/newsletter/9904news/index.htm.en

DICK EASTMAN: Excellent article about copyright and genealogy - easy to read and easy to understand. http://www.ancestry.com/library/view/columns/eastman/3714.asp

LEGAL INFORMATION INSTITUTE: Copyright Law- The legal nitty-gritty. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/

EASY TO READ: Quick search for areas you are interested in http://www.bitlaw.com/copyright/index.html

THE COPYRIGHT WEBSITE! This site endeavors to provide real world, practical and relevant copyright information of interest to infonauts, netsurfers, webspinners, content providers, musicians, appropriationists, activists, infringers, outlaws, and law abiding citizens. Also has several sections about current "notorious pillagers."
http://www.benedict.com

PLAIN OLE TEXT FROM THE GOVERNMENT: http://www.pueblo.gsa.gov/cic_text/smbuss/cpyright/cpyright.txt

COPYRIGHT OFFICE: Simply get it from the "horse's mouth" (so to speak) The Copyright Office http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/

FAIR USE OF COPYRIGHTED Everyone likes to quote "FAIR USE" when they gab something from the web. Find out what's really meant by "FAIR USE": http://www.cetus.org/fairindex.html

WHEN DOES A WORK BECOME PUBLIC DOMAIN? Have an old book and are wondering if you can scan it and post it on the web or reproduce it? Here's a site that gives you the dates that are important. http://www.unc.edu/~unclng/public-d.htm Here's a site that let's you enter the title of a book and find out if the copyright has expired http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~lesk/copyrenew.html and another site you can search http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/11800

1998 COPYRIGHT LAW FOR THE INTERNET: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,24928,00.html?sas.mail

10 MYTHS ABOUT COPYRIGHT. One of the easiest to understand explanation of what's what's in copyright information. A must see for anyone before they post to the web or publish. http://www.templetons.com/brad//copymyths.html

WHO OWNS GENEALOGY INFO? While we are looking at copyrights check out this article about genealogy information. http://www.genealogy.com/genealogy/14_cpyrt.html

STEVE PAUL JOHNSON'S VIEWS ON GENEALOGY COPYRIGHTS: Right or Wrong his column is interesting. http://www.interment.net/column/commentary/19990915.htm

ROOTSWEB'S LIST OF LINKS FOR COPYRIGHT INFORMATION: http://www.rootsweb.com/~bwo/bwocwp.html

Yahoo's INFORMATION & LINKS FOR COPYRIGHT INFO:
http://dir.yahoo.com/Government/Law/Intellectual_Property/Copyrights/

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