On Wednesday, April 11, 2001 2:29 PM, Neal Caskey <[email protected]> wrote: > >Can You Copyright Your Data? > - Dick Eastman > .... >For instance, if the original records of a town are difficult >to read because of faded ink or poor penmanship, an expert >historian with proper experience may be able to decode the >information properly and then publish that interpretation of >the original records. The interpretation involved constitutes >originality and therefore may be copyrighted. I would point out that one must separate "editorial" interpretation of some words in a document from the scholarly work described above, which may verge on a completely original work of authorship :-). >At first glance one would think that most of the genealogy data >published on CD-ROM or online would be free of copyright. >However, a closer look at the copyright laws reveals a >different picture. Publishers of CD-ROM and online databases >have two weapons available to protect their data. The first is >originality, added by the electronic search capabilities of >their product. That is, the capability to find a specific >record within 2 or 3 seconds in a large database constitutes >"originality in selecting" records and is, therefore, covered >by copyrights. The original data is still public domain, but >the use of the producer's electronic search capabilities places >restrictions on what you can do with the output. This is really dubious. The search engine itself is certainly copyrightable, but it is just a tool used by the *individual* who selects the search criteria, so the data it produces cannot be copyrightable on that basis. The statement above is like saying that the copyright on every document you produce with Microsoft Word belongs to Microsoft, since you used their tools to produce it. On the other hand, the format of the output may be subject to copyright, if there is some originality there. Simple tabular data in general is not original, though. > The second weapon is the software license. Whether you use a CD-ROM > database or search genealogy information on the Web, you still > are bound by the legal terms and conditions specified by the > company who produced the software involved. In short, you cannot use their > software for purposes other than what they allow. This, on the other hand, is lock-solid. Even if the information is public domain, they can require you to keep private what they're going to show you before they show it to you. This is not a copyright issue, it is a contractual agreement. >In general, copying a small amount of a work is considered fair >use unless it is the heart of the work. Going back to the >earlier example of responding to lookup requests on newsgroups >or message boards, such activities would appear to infringe on >the heart of the work and also to have a major impact on "the >market value of the work." The person receiving the information >from you is less likely to purchase his or her own copy of the >work, so you have illegally impacted the market value of the >work in question. But you can always recast the information in your own format (unless you are subject to a license agreement). >Extracting a bit of text from a long work seems to be proper >under the fair use provision. For instance, in this newsletter, >you will often see me quote a few sentences from a longer work, >such as a program's help file or a Web site's description of >its services. My belief is that such a quote falls under the >fair use section on news reporting. The amount of text quoted >is small in relation to the whole work and would appear to have >no impact on the market value of the work. Of course, I always >attribute the work and then give a reference as to where the >reader can find the original. Not to mention that it is being used as part of a larger original work. This "springboard to further creativity" is one the main rationales for fair use. > Beware, however, of the less than expert material that you also find online. That would be me :-). It may also be the author of this article. S R C A cott obert ranston nderson [email protected] Admin, {C{offield,ollosky,ranston,ummins},OHGuerns,USAGen}[email protected] USGenWeb Coordinator, http://www.usgennet.org/usa/oh/county/guernsey/