This message is being sent with permission of the writer, who was responding to a fellow list member. It Alexandra --------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "Richard A. Pence" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2000 07:35:09 -0500 Subject: [APG] Copyright Infringement > Interestingly enough, you might be ok posting their cemetery > transcriptions without their permission. Since they are merely > compilations of facts (what it says on the tombstone), if you > copy and repost them with a new presentation (ie dont just post > scans of their book) you would probably win in court. > See the classic "Feist vs. Rural Telephone Co" case. We are now at the point where we're saying, "so sue me," right? Interestingly enough, the Copyright Office doesn't agree with the above "interestingly enough." Ben says a book of tombstone inscriptions is merely a "compilation of facts" and thus in not protected by copyright law. The U.S. Copyright Office, Library of Congress, Circular 65, says that such a work can be copyrighted as "a compilation, which is defined in the law as a work 'formed by the collection and assembling of preexisting materials or of data that are selected, coordinated, or arranged in such a way that the resulting work as a whole constitutes an original work of authorship.'" [Note that in the 1960s or 1970s, the genealogy community, including the NGS, vigorously and successfully got the Copyright Office to recognize publications such as inscriptions or county records as copyrightable "compilations" when more than a modicum of interpretation was involved.] The Office further says that "Copyright protection extends to the _compilation of facts_ if the compilation represents original authorship." [Emphasis added.] So "facts" aren't quite so uncopyrightable as some believe. One is free to get his or her own bee stings while copying these same tombstones and then publish them. But he or she has no right to copy another's published compilation, even if it consists entirely of "facts." As for Feist vs. Rural Telephone, a case that is widely quoted by internet "genealogists" to validate their theft of genealogical "facts," it clearly comes under this provision in a list of materials not entitled to copyright protection: Copyright protection is not available for a work "where the collection and arrangement of the material is a mechanical task only, and represents no original authorship ..." A phone book is an alphabetized list of names and numbers. Creation of such a list is merely a mechanical task. It can be argued that this compilation of inscriptions or that may not meet the requirements of "original authorship," but in my opinion it is the professional genealogist who should insist that such works be accorded the full protection of the copyright laws. Aside from the obvious circumstance that some may be the authors/compilers of such works, an equally compelling reason is that without copyright protection the supply of this kind of valuable material will dry up. No rational person is going to go through the intense effort of copying a cemetery's tombstone inscriptions, compiling this information in a useful and usable fashion and then publishing it - not if a couple of weeks later some fellow decides it is quite all right to "copy and repost them with a new presentation." Even if the law didn't preclude this, such an action would, at best, be less than honest and, I would hope, be considered highly unethical. The matter of materials in book form held by local societies is a different question. Obviously, these societies depend at least to some extent on the sale of their books for income. For that reason, there is a reluctance to allow their contents to be put on line. The reality is that few such books do little more than pay the printing bill. This means that in the future, on-line publication will increase: No club president likes to make a decision about spending $1,000 to print a book that people may or may not buy - not when it cost practically nothing to put the information on line. Regards, Richard A. Pence, 3211 Adams Ct, Fairfax, VA 22030 Voice 703-591-4243 Fax 703-385-0971 Pence Family History <http://www.pipeline.com/~richardpence/>