GenChat-L Archives

From: David Sylvester <>
Subject: Copyright Fundamentals for Genealogy
Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 04:15:29 -0500

I found this at http://www.pddoc.com/farnham/?p=96




<http://www.pddoc.com/farnham/?p=96>Copyright
Fundamentals for Genealogy

This article is available for free distribution
and reprint as a public service from the author.
Please read conditions at the end of the article.

Since genealogical research inevitably involves
copying of information, questions involving
copyright often crop up. When an answer is given,
it may be less than satisfactory. Sometimes the
answer is wrong, sometimes there is little or no
explanation, and sometimes the answer isn’t an
answer, but a policy statement. In other
instances, the answer is right, but it isn’t what
the questioner wanted to hear.

While copyright can be very complex and
confusing, the parts of copyright law that
usually apply to genealogy are really pretty
basic. There are a few fundamentals that can help
deal with just about any genealogy copyright situation.

Copyright means copy right

Literally, the term copyright means the right to
make copies of some product. By law, the right
belongs to its creator. In copyright law, the
product that’s copyrighted is referred to as a
“work” and the creator of the work is its author.
From that, we can say:

Making a copy of a work or a portion of a work is
its author’s copy right.

In the U.S., the right to make a copy of a
protected work is a constitutional, exclusive
right of the work’s author, except that some
limited copying is allowed by provisions of the
copyright law. (see
<http://www.pddoc.com/copyright/fair_use.htm>fair use)

Is it copyrighted?

If it’s created today by the original expression
of the author and it can be viewed or copied,
then it is protected under copyright. The law says:
Copyright protection subsists… in original works
of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of
expression, now known or later developed, from
which they can be perceived, reproduced, or
otherwise communicated, either directly or with
the aid of a machine or device.

(continued at
<http://www.pddoc.com/copyright/genealogy_copyright_fundamentals.htm#next>Copy
Right, Copy Sense)

This thread:

• Copyright Fundamentals for Genealogy by David Sylvester <>