ETHICS-IN-GENEALOGY-L Archives

From:
Subject: [Ethics] Ancestry s answer
Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2002 12:40:33 EST

http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec?htx=postmessage&r=an&p=topics.rw.worldcon
nect&m=1465.4667.4680.2&onok=http%3A%2F%2Fboards.ancestry.com%2Fmbexec%2Fms
g%2Fan%2F0E.2ADIAE%2F1465.4667.4680.2&oncancel=http%3A%2F%2Fboards.ancestry
.com%2Fmbexec%2Fmsg%2Fan%2F0E.2ADIAE%2F1465.4667.4680.2

April,

You apparently share a common misconception as to what portion of
genealogy research may be copyrighted. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled
that facts may not be copyrighted.
"Facts, whether alone or as part of a compilation, are not original and
therefore may not be copyrighted."

No one can own the fact that 2+2=4, or that you were born in XXX city on
a certain date. Facts may be freely republished by anyone, regardless of
where or how they discovered those facts. See Feist v. Rural Publications
http://www.cswnet.com/~sbooks/genealogy/copyright/feist/feist.htm

"Comments, musings, and theories", if your original creative work, are
copyrighted and RootsWeb or Ancestry will respond to a valid copyright
claim. However, a claim that someone has "stolen" your GEDCOM does not
constitute a valid copyright claim. You must identify your original
creative work that has been republished without your permission. They
will need:
1) Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to be infringed, and
the basis of the claim.
2) Identification of the material which is claimed to be infringing,
including the URL


Pat

My response....

Pat,

Thank you for your reply. According to the Better Business Bureau, I had
to show that I had contacted the company and they did nothing to take
steps to resolve the complaint. Your reply is just what I needed to
finish filing the complaint.

Your company seems to be under the misconception that just because you
have posted a policy it makes unethical behavior OK. I have already sent
in the exact urls on several occassions that are in copyright violation.
"RootsWeb or Ancestry will respond to a valid copyright claim," you said.
When?
On the website, posted in 1998, it said that the gedcom and all other
material on the site was copyrighted.

You need to reread the file at the url you gave which says the following:
"The key to resolving the tension lies in understanding why facts are not
copyrightable. The sine qua non of copyright is originality. To qualify
for copyright protection, a work must be original to the author. See:
Harper & Row, supra, at 547-549, 105 S.Ct., at 2223-2224. Original, as
the term is used in copyright, means only that the work was independently
created by the author (as opposed to copied from other works), and that
it possesses at least some minimal degree of creativity. "

Obviously, musings, stories, lore, etc. fall under the description
"minimal degrees of creativity."

Thanks again for your assistance.

April Heath
Heycuz moderator and web site administrator
http://heycuz.cjb.net



A cousin a day, that's all we ask! http://heycuz.cjb.net

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