There is more than one method to copy records from a website. You can do a Copy and Paste, or you can capture an image of the entire page. I don't know if a copyright violation occurs by simply capturing an image of the page and transferring it to your computer. My guess is that there would be, even if you then altered it to uncopyrighted form and applied your own copyright. Someone else may want to comment on this point. It is my impression that the html codes, graphics, tables, links, etc. are lost during a regular Copy and Paste from a website. That removes a lot of the "creative" aspects of the webpage. If you are copying public records, the information in them cannot be copyrighted. A person's introduction or comments can be, because they are the creative work of the person who posted the records. If you Copy and Paste only the records and the source (book title, etc.) of the records, you should not be in any violation. However, Arthur C.M. Kelly adds his own "Item" number for each record in the 60+ books of NY vital records that he has published. His index sends you to that number. This might show some creative effort. If his records were online, you might not be able to use his column of item numbers. But, since there is nothing creative about chronologically numbering records, it would seem to me that you could use the same numbers without copyright violation. I could be wrong. You certainly wouldn't want to call it an "item" number, a word he chose because it contained only four letters, which is the widest his columns go (He stopped at 9999 records in one narrow book for that reason). Cliff Bennie White wrote: > Nothing at all, Pat. If someone shows a copyright on compiled public > records such as you described, the copyright would apply only to the > format and the way in which the data was presented, not the actual > data is not copyrighted. I personally have spent many hours at my > county Court House compiling marriage records, deeds, pension > applications, and I claim copyright on my format; however, anyone else > is free to go to the CH and do the same--they may come up with a > better format. > > As far as using the data in copyrighted public record compilations, > no problem! It would be, however, a copyright violation if someone > downloaded the entire file or zeroxed a copy and posted it in a public > place, such as a web page. Now we have a format violation. > > I'm no expert on copyright, and if anything I have stated above is > in error, feel free to sound off at me. > > Bennie > > [email protected] wrote: > > > > Hi List > > > > I have noted that a number of people who have typed up Records from the > > Vital Records Dept. in various area's (Such as Marriage, Births, Deaths, > > etc..) note that they have a copyright on them. > > > > Please explain to me how Public Records can be copyrighted by a person and > > what would prevent anyone else from using them or going to the Courthouse > > copying and than typing up the same? > > > > Thank you > > Pat > > > > > > ==== COPYRIGHT Mailing List ==== > > Threaded archives at > > http://archiver.rootsweb.com/COPYRIGHT-L/ > > > > ============================== > > Search over 600 million names at Ancestry.com! > > http://www.ancestry.com/search > > ==== COPYRIGHT Mailing List ==== > Freepages, that is free web pages > http://www.rootsweb.com/rootsweb/press/freepages.html > > ============================== > Search over 600 million names at Ancestry.com! > http://www.ancestry.com/search